Murphy’s Law – The true meaning of Christmas
By Joel Murphy |
O Holiday Tree! O Holiday Tree!
Thy leaves are so unchanging.
It just doesn’t have the same ring to it. But, given the way things are going, it very well could be how the song goes a few years from now. It seems more and more government agencies are referring to the large, decorated trees on their lawns as “Holiday Trees,” afraid of upsetting the more politically correct among us by using the dreaded “C” word (no, not that “C” word – I mean Christmas). The tree displayed on the West Lawn of the U.S. Capitol, which was formerly known as the “Capitol Christmas Tree” was re-branded a “Holiday Tree” in the late 1990s.
As our society gets more and more uptight, I guess our government is really starting to worry about upsetting people during the “holiday season,” which I guess is easier for them to focus on than the war in Iraq or the way oil companies are screwing us over. By carefully avoiding the word “Christmas,” our government is trying to appease the atheists out there. Because after all, Christmas is a really big religious holiday. It’s like the Super Bowl of Christianity.
Or is it? This year some of our country’s mega-churches are shutting down on Christmas Sunday. In the past when Christmas has fallen on a Sunday, attendance at these large churches has been down considerably. So the mega-churches have decided to just close up shop on Christmas, which they are viewing as a “family day.” Naturally, some people are not very pleased about this.
“This is a consumer mentality at work: ‘Let’s not impose the church on people. Let’s not make church in any way inconvenient,'” quipped professor David Wells, who teaches history and systematic theology at Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary, a leading evangelical school in Massachusetts. “I think what this does is feed into the individualism that is found throughout American culture, where everyone does their own thing.”
Basically, we’ve become a consumer culture and we now value material possession over spiritual growth (pretty much everything Chuck Palahniuk was trying to warn us about in Fight Club). We, as a nation, are our fucking khakis.
Which is why I think our country needs to get back to basics. We need to reevaluate our priorities and look into the past to remember what Dec. 25 is really all about – the feast of the Son of Isis.
Now, I’m guessing I’ve lost a few of you at this point, but try to stick with me. I’m warning you, this might be upsetting in a Da Vinci Code kind of way, but it needs to be said – Jesus Christ probably wasn’t born on Dec. 25. You see, it gets pretty cold in Judea in the winter, so it’s pretty unlikely that shepherds would still be “keeping watch over their flocks at night” during this time of year.
In fact, there are no references in the Bible to the actual day of Jesus’ birth. It was in the year 350 that Pope Julius I decided people should start celebrating Christ’s birth on Dec. 25. Since pagan Romans were the majority at the time, the pope was looking for a way to convert them to Christianity without taking away their beloved winter feast (he did the same thing with Easter).
Most of our Christmas traditions come from these pagan rituals. Not just Babylon’s Son of Isis feast that I alluded to earlier, but also the Roman’s winter solstice known as “Saturnalia” and the northern European pagans’ “Yule” celebration.
Caroling comes from the ancient Romans, who had a group known as the Mummers. The Mummers would put on costumes, then sing and dance throughout their neighborhood.
For their Yule celebrations, the pagans in northern Europe would burn large “Yule logs” in honor of their Sun god.
And the big one – Christmas trees – were actually a part of all of the northern European winter solstices. Pagans would often bring live evergreen trees home during the harsh winters to remind them that their crops would grow again. The Druids (not the guys who bring out the Undertaker on Smackdown!) would gather around huge trees and worship them as part of their sacred ceremonies. In those days, Evergreen boughs represented fertility and were often given as presents at weddings.
The first record of Christians using a Christmas tree was in Germany in 1521. Ironically enough, a Lutheran minister at the time saw this as blasphemy and said, “Better that they should look to the true tree of life, Christ.”
I guess what I’m trying to say to our government and all of you PC nuts out there is – lighten up. I think we can call the large Evergreen on the Capitol a “Christmas Tree.” Christians can be happy because the word Christmas is still part of our vocabulary, and atheists can secretly smile because all of these traditions come from pagans. Everyone’s a winner.
Whether you are celebrating the birth of Jesus Christ, giving props to your Sun god or just in it to get a new iPod – Christmas is a beautiful holiday. I think Bill Murray said it best in the classic Scrooged, “It’s the time of the year when we all act a little nicer, we smile a little easier, we … cheer a little more. For a couple of hours out of the whole year, we are the people that we always hoped we would be. It’s a miracle.”
I think we should just all openly embrace Christmas. Look, Dec. 25 can mean whatever you want it to mean. If you are Jewish, you can even go the Seth Cohen “Christmukkah” route – but let’s all just enjoy the holiday season. Just think back to when you were a kid, before political correctness and all of the nonsense we have going on now, when all you wanted to do was get downstairs and see what Santa brought for you (or for Jewish kids, think of how fun spinning a dradle for eight days was).
So, I don’t wish any of you “Happy Holidays.” It’s “Merry Christmas” or nothing. Deal with it.
Random thought of the week:
Andy Serkis has gone from playing Gollum in the Lord of the Rings trilogy to playing King Kong in Peter Jackson’s latest blockbuster. You know, if Serkis isn’t careful, he’s going to end up typecasting himself … as awesome.
Joel Murphy is the creator of HoboTrashcan, which is probably why he has his own column. He also has some really hot friends. You can contact him at: murphyslaw@hobotrashcan.com
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Your usage of the term “PC” brings to mind the words of Miss Manners: “The pejorative term ‘political correctness’ was adapted to express disapproval of the enlargement of etiquette to cover all people, in spite of this being a principle to which all Americans claim to subscribe.”
IOW it was coined by people who want to be able to call others spics, kikes, or whatever nasty word they like. Maybe I’m missing something, but you don’t seem to be that kind of person.
Perhaps you might want to consider using the word “heretical” which means “going against the accepted wisdom” and connotes the sense of “oh, no — he didn’t!” which you seem to desire.
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Wow, you were really digging through the archives to find this one.
No offense to Miss Manners, but I’m using the phrase more in line with Wikipedia’s listed definition: “Political correctness (adjectivally, politically correct; both forms commonly abbreviated to PC) is a term which denotes language, ideas, policies and behavior seen as seeking to minimize social and institutional offense in occupational, gender, racial, cultural, sexual orientation, disability and age-related contexts.”
The move to replace Christmas trees with “holiday trees” is still, in my opinion, a very politically correct move.
I think Miss Manners definition makes a blanket statement about everyone who uses the word by lumping everyone together with a fringe group of racists who wish they could still say hateful words like that. I think filtering out hate speech is important, but the pendulum has begun to swing too far in the other direction in recent years and, in my opinion, people have become oversensitive about certain words and practices. That’s how we end up calling Christmas trees “holiday trees.”
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I wasn’t addressing your assessment of what to call the tree, only the etymology of a phrase that (imho) has become over-used to the point of meaninglessness.
I am familiar with the definition of the expression as it has developed through usage. However, I think it’s important to remember its origins as a pejorative meant to criticize those who think it’s important to “minimize social and institutional offense.” Your mileage may vary. 🙂
When it comes to oversensitivity I guess I’d rather err on the side of caution. Life is painful and difficult enough as it is. I’m sure you don’t intentionally offend others — I’m just saying one person’s “people are oversensitive” is another’s “we should try to be thoughtful.”
As far as the whole “tree” thing is concerned, I am both a Christian and a huge fan of the Constitution. I try to be aware of the fact that (the tireless work of revisionist “historians” to the contrary) this is not a Christian nation.
I don’t give a hoot in a holler what the thing is called: I don’t think taxpayer dollars should be spent to put up Christmas trees, holiday trees, Hanukkah bushes, or Festivus poles, period. Somehow, and this may be heretical to some people, the nation will survive the month of December without displays of objects associated with specific religions on government property.
This is, of course, far afield of what you originally opined. Just wanted to let you know I wasn’t disagreeing with your position: calling a Christmas tree a holiday tree strikes me as silly, too, and I don’t know a single atheist, agnostic, Hindu, Muslim, Buddhist, etc. who thinks it should be called a holiday tree. Everyone knows what it is.
(Yes, I was digging around a fair amount here, never having been here before and liking what I see. I won’t be a regular but I will drop in from time to time. Nice place.)
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