While I’m no expert on other cultures, civilizations, or religions—it is remarkable the amount of effort we Westerners pour into the Christmas season. Equally remarkable and most encouraging is the good cheer and optimism that the Christmas season engenders.
In the modern West, despite the misinformed gnashing of separation of church and state teeth and the scolds’ overwrought concern of being exclusionary to non-Christians—Christmas remains an integral part of our cultural fiber.
The level of artistic focus applied to Christmas (not to mention the whole “commercialization” of Christmas and the associated enormous year-end economic retail bump) is astounding. There are dozens of popular Christmas songs, some of which date back centuries. Two thousand years later, artists are still paying homage to Christmas, and some songs are so well-crafted and embedded in our collective and individual conscious that we sing and hum from memory. It may be fair to say that you haven’t really made it as an artists if you haven’t covered and released a compilation of Christmas songs!
Writers, poets and theatrical, movie and TV show creators have filled the winter’s entertainment and artistic schedule with productions from high-art such as Tchaikovsky’s “Nutcracker” ballet to Charles Shulz’s animated “A Charlie Brown Christmas,” to entire movie franchises such as “Home Alone” or “The Santa Clause.”
That Christmas resonates so deeply in our modern collective conscience may be attributable to its combination of humility and awe—the willingness to ponder that the birth of a child on a cold night, to an unwed mother, in a manger, in Bethlehem some 2,000 years ago may represent the salvation of humankind—combined with life-affirming optimism (the promise of everlasting afterlife dependent on doing unto others as we would have done to ourselves) many share this time of year via gift-giving, card-sending, and most important—that collective sense of goodwill towards all that inspires us to regularly wish friend, foe, co-or-other religionist, atheist, and stranger alike—a Very Merry Christmas!
Peter T. Breier, Esq., resides in Staunton.
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