Kids are always fun to watch, whatever they sing at school productions. But something is shallow and tinny about a collection of songs missing the deep, rich cultural traditions of a society.
I recently attended a school Christmas concert in which no one sang old, traditional carols.
It would be one thing if we included Hanukkah or Kwanza songs at school concerts. But we don’t. Instead of adding to the rich texture of voices singing about important themes of a culture, we leech out the meaningful songs and replace them with superficial ones that will be forgotten in five years.
It’s like saying that instead of adding raisins, nuts and rum flavoring to our cookies, we’ll take out the sugar to make it fair. Though there’s nothing wrong with change, change lately has resulted in flavorless fare, to be frank.
Incensed, some groups take to boycotts while others use a blunt ax, especially on the wackier expressions of anti-Christmas sentiment.
Reaction to the slow censorship of Christmas isn’t simply a problem of folks with a persecution complex or overactive imagination.
Good communicators use specific, concrete examples. You don’t move from a good image or metaphor to something vague and general. Better to write about the flaky, lemon bars and steaming mocha than to say “hot drinks and desserts were served.”
So we’ve moved from “Merry Christmas” – and all the sensory delights those two words conjure up -- to “Happy Holidays,” a much more general greeting.
But it’s not the first time. Remember “Season’s Greetings”? When that expression came limping out to replace “Merry Christmas,” its use was roundly ridiculed, and it slowly disappeared except for times it was appropriate.
(If you’re wishing someone Season’s Greetings or Happy Holidays and you’re talking about all the holidays from Thanksgiving to New Years, there is no better way to do it. Or if you’re wishing someone Happy Holidays because you’re pretty sure they don’t celebrate Christmas and you’re not sure what they do celebrate, Happy Holidays, vague as it is, never hurts.)
But if you’ve got a black pen and just are striking out “Christmas” from your vocabulary, for fear of a bully lawsuit, or of offending non-celebrants or just because it seems to fit in with the spirit of the times, that’s a problem.
And though we’re far from suffering torture for saying “Merry Christmas,” we now could lose a job.
Christmas, if locked out, will, in no way, stay out.
When Nazis replaced Christmas with Yule, and substituted Teutonic deities for Christian imagery, Christmas did not disappear, but it did have to hide for a while.
When the Puritan leaders in colonial America ordered folks to work even harder on Christmas Day than usual, to fight the temptation of celebrating a “popish” holiday, Christmas reappeared in all its glory later on. (The ACLU, like ducks waddling and flapping over the latest appearance of yet another egg, has more in common with Puritans than they think!)
But even before the Pilgrims, Christmas was forced to hide.
After the wise men left, the Lord appeared to Joseph in a dream, saying, Arise, and take the young child and his mother, and flee into Egypt, and stay there until I bring word: for Herod will seek the young child to destroy him.
I can well imagine that if the Christmas story were broadcast on network news, Joseph’s mug shot would be flashed over the airwaves -- and blame for the Bethlehem slaughter would swirl around this shadowy figure, who crossed the border into Egypt without a proper, government security clearance.
“Is he epicenter of some radical movement? Who in heaven is this guy?” the Herodians might ask, in lyric echos traveling through all Judea.
The wise men – a U.N. peace delegation – would be under investigation over a myrrh-for-food scandal and the shepherds would be told to tone it down, to hush things up, given to understand they should focus on the oxen, stable and donkey -- and not say so much about visions in the sky. And especially to back off from inflammatory statements concerning the babe in the manger.
Hidden in the column above are 11 Christmas words. The hidden words may span two or three words or be tucked within a word. For example, if the hidden word is “king,” it could be in the phrase “Put the pack in Gail’s closet.” Or it could be inside the word “asking.” Here are the hidden words: flock, camel, gold, sheep, inn, magi, angel, swaddling, star, frankincense, taxes. Have a merry Christmas.
I recently attended a school Christmas concert in which no one sang old, traditional carols.
It would be one thing if we included Hanukkah or Kwanza songs at school concerts. But we don’t. Instead of adding to the rich texture of voices singing about important themes of a culture, we leech out the meaningful songs and replace them with superficial ones that will be forgotten in five years.
It’s like saying that instead of adding raisins, nuts and rum flavoring to our cookies, we’ll take out the sugar to make it fair. Though there’s nothing wrong with change, change lately has resulted in flavorless fare, to be frank.
Incensed, some groups take to boycotts while others use a blunt ax, especially on the wackier expressions of anti-Christmas sentiment.
Reaction to the slow censorship of Christmas isn’t simply a problem of folks with a persecution complex or overactive imagination.
Good communicators use specific, concrete examples. You don’t move from a good image or metaphor to something vague and general. Better to write about the flaky, lemon bars and steaming mocha than to say “hot drinks and desserts were served.”
So we’ve moved from “Merry Christmas” – and all the sensory delights those two words conjure up -- to “Happy Holidays,” a much more general greeting.
But it’s not the first time. Remember “Season’s Greetings”? When that expression came limping out to replace “Merry Christmas,” its use was roundly ridiculed, and it slowly disappeared except for times it was appropriate.
(If you’re wishing someone Season’s Greetings or Happy Holidays and you’re talking about all the holidays from Thanksgiving to New Years, there is no better way to do it. Or if you’re wishing someone Happy Holidays because you’re pretty sure they don’t celebrate Christmas and you’re not sure what they do celebrate, Happy Holidays, vague as it is, never hurts.)
But if you’ve got a black pen and just are striking out “Christmas” from your vocabulary, for fear of a bully lawsuit, or of offending non-celebrants or just because it seems to fit in with the spirit of the times, that’s a problem.
And though we’re far from suffering torture for saying “Merry Christmas,” we now could lose a job.
Christmas, if locked out, will, in no way, stay out.
When Nazis replaced Christmas with Yule, and substituted Teutonic deities for Christian imagery, Christmas did not disappear, but it did have to hide for a while.
When the Puritan leaders in colonial America ordered folks to work even harder on Christmas Day than usual, to fight the temptation of celebrating a “popish” holiday, Christmas reappeared in all its glory later on. (The ACLU, like ducks waddling and flapping over the latest appearance of yet another egg, has more in common with Puritans than they think!)
But even before the Pilgrims, Christmas was forced to hide.
After the wise men left, the Lord appeared to Joseph in a dream, saying, Arise, and take the young child and his mother, and flee into Egypt, and stay there until I bring word: for Herod will seek the young child to destroy him.
I can well imagine that if the Christmas story were broadcast on network news, Joseph’s mug shot would be flashed over the airwaves -- and blame for the Bethlehem slaughter would swirl around this shadowy figure, who crossed the border into Egypt without a proper, government security clearance.
“Is he epicenter of some radical movement? Who in heaven is this guy?” the Herodians might ask, in lyric echos traveling through all Judea.
The wise men – a U.N. peace delegation – would be under investigation over a myrrh-for-food scandal and the shepherds would be told to tone it down, to hush things up, given to understand they should focus on the oxen, stable and donkey -- and not say so much about visions in the sky. And especially to back off from inflammatory statements concerning the babe in the manger.
Hidden in the column above are 11 Christmas words. The hidden words may span two or three words or be tucked within a word. For example, if the hidden word is “king,” it could be in the phrase “Put the pack in Gail’s closet.” Or it could be inside the word “asking.” Here are the hidden words: flock, camel, gold, sheep, inn, magi, angel, swaddling, star, frankincense, taxes. Have a merry Christmas.
Donna Marmorstein Dec. 2005 All Rights Reserved
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