RBiser

Repost:

I was in Costco recently and saw that the Christmas Decorations and gift baskets are on display and for sale a full month before Halloween. I was reminded of a C.S. Lewis essay.

Xmas and Christmas — A Lost Chapter from Herodotus

By C.S. Lewis

And beyond this there lies in the ocean, turned towards the west and north, the island of Niatirb which Hecataeus indeed declares to he the same size and shape as Sicily, but it is larger, though in calling it triangular a man would not miss the mark. It is densely inhabited by men who wear clothes not very different from the other barbarians who occupy the north-western parts of Europe though they do not agree with them in language. These islanders. surpassing all the men of whom we know in patience and endurance, use the following customs.

In the middle of winter when fogs and rains most abound they have a great festival which they call Exmas, and for fifty days they prepare for it in the fashion I shall describe. First of all, every citizen is obliged to send to each of his friends and relations a square piece of hard paper stamped with a picture, which in their speech is called an Exmas-card. But the pictures represent birds sitting on branches, or trees with a dark green prickly leaf, or else men in such garments as the Niatirbians believe that their ancestors wore two hundred years ago riding in coaches such as their ancestors used, or houses with snow on their roofs. And the Niatirbians are unwilling to say what these pictures have to do with the festival, guarding (as I suppose) some sacred mystery. And because all men must send these cards the marketplace is filled with the crowd of those buying them, so that there is great labour and weariness.

But having bought as many as they suppose to be sufficient, they return to their houses and find there the like cards which others have sent to them. And when they find cards from any to whom they also have sent cards, they throw them away and give thanks to the gods that this labour at least is over for another year. But when they find cards from any to whom they have not sent, then they beat their breasts and wail and utter curses against the sender; and, having sufficiently lamented their misfortune, they put on their boots again and go out into the fog and rain and buy a card for him also. And let this account suffice about Exmas-cards.

They also send gifts to one another, suffering the same things about the gifts as about the cards, or even worse. For every citizen has to guess the value of the gift which every friend will send to him so that he may send one of equal value, whether he can afford it or not. And they buy as gifts for one another such things as no man ever bought for himself. For the sellers, understanding the custom, put forth all kinds of trumpery, and whatever, being useless and ridiculous, they have been unable to sell throughout the year they now sell as an Exmas gift. And though the Niatirbians profess themselves to lack sufficient necessary things, such as metal, leather, wood and paper, yet an incredible quantity of these things is wasted every year, being made into the gifts.

But during these fifty days the oldest, poorest and most miserable of the citizens put on false beards and red robes and walk about the market-place; being disguised (in my opinion) as Cronos. And the sellers of gifts no less than the purchasers become pale and weary, because of the crowds and the fog, so that any man who came into a Niatirbian city at this season would think some great public calamity had fallen on Niatirb. This fifty days of preparation is called in their barbarian speech the Exmas Rush. But when the day of the festival comes, then most of the citizens, being exhausted with the Rush, lie in bed till noon. But in the evening they eat five times as much supper as on other days and, crowning themselves with crowns of paper, they become intoxicated. And on the day after Exmas they are very grave, being internally disordered by the supper and the drinking and reckoning how much they have spent on gifts and on the wine. For wine is so dear among the Niatirbians that a man must swallow the worth of a talent before he is well intoxicated.

Such, then, are their customs about the Exmas. But the few among the Niatirbians have also a festival, separate and to themselves, called Crissmas, which is on the same day as Exmas. And those who keep Crissmas, doing the opposite to the majority of the Niatirbians, rise early on that day with shining faces and go before sunrise to certain temples where they partake of a sacred feast. And in most of the temples they set out images of a fair woman with a new-born Child on her knees and certain animals and shepherds adoring the Child. (The reason of these images is given in a certain sacred story which 1 know but do not repeat.)

But I myself conversed with a priest in one of these temples and asked him why they kept Crissmas on the same day as Exmas; for it appeared to me inconvenient. But the priest replied, It is not lawful, 0 Stranger, for us to change the date of Crissmas, but would that Zeus would put it into the minds of the Niatirbians to keep Exmas at some other time or not to keep it at all. For Exmas and the Rush distract the minds even of the few from sacred things. And we indeed are glad that men should make merry at Crissmas; but in Exmas there is no merriment left. And when I asked him why they endured the Rush, he replied, It is, 0 Stranger, a racket; using (as I suppose) the words of some oracle and speaking unintelligibly to me (for a racket is an instrument which the barbarians use in a game called tennis).

But what Hecataeus says, that Exmas and Crissmas are the same, is not credible. For first, the pictures which are stamped on the Exmas-cards have nothing to do with the sacred story which the priests tell about Crissmas. And secondly, the most part of the Niatirbians, not believing the religion of the few, nevertheless send the gifts and cards and – participate in the Rush and drink, wearing paper caps. But it is not likely that men, even being barbarians, should suffer so many and great things in honour of a god they do not believe in. And now, enough about Niatirb.

Baby boomer xmas muzak is the worst music in the history of the world.

It is secularizing, lowest common denominator, garbage. 

Every nation without exception has a national religion and Christianity isn’t America’s. 

Rule one of American Mammonism, offend no one and include everyone in the Christmas shopping bonanza. Gene Autry, Rudolph, and Frosty are the high priests of a post-christ Christmas. If everyone is to engage in the consumerism then caroling must be replaced with secular in-offensive drivel. The sentiment behind wishing “happy holidays” instead “merry Christmas” starts on fifth avenue in 1946. 

Sadly America being a new nation we doesn’t even have the benefit of an actual virile paganism with which to syncretize. Yule logs, Christmas trees, and mistletoe have some blood in their traditions. American pop-folk-traditions, and ersatz-fairy-tales are not historical, organic, or lively. Our culture is only as deep as celluloid. Our paganism is hollow and de novo from New York and Hollywood. 

As Charles Taylor would say we live in a disenchanted world and all we can grasp at is regurgitated mass media childhood commonalities of 70 years ago. At best the music represents a longing for whatever we had before we personally lost our naive childish enchantment with the world since as a culture we cannot muster more than blasé ironic distance from anything. Lacking sincerity in general we substitute nostalgia for nostalgia’s sake one month a year. Santa Claus is a lie and there is no magic in the world. 

If post-modern deconstructionism has taught us anything it is that nothing is neutral and the xmas anthem of the postwar generation is anti-christian as it crowds out actual Christmas music to be the liturgy of American syncretic consumerism. Nostalgia is no excuse for undermining christianity. 

No one can imagine a “secular” Ramadan which everyone regardless of faith celebrates with atheistic songs, or a secular “Hanukkah” devoid of jewishness. Those holidays have been protected by their respective believers. Christmas alone has been neutralized as we believers are Americans first and christians second. 

For a while christianity as kitsch was allowed such as in Charlie Brown’s monologue but the grinch gets more play. 

You can’t worship both God and Mammon but the infinite loop of 50’s secular favourites in shopping malls everywhere will sure help you try. (A blessing of COVID is at least the avoidance of restaurant and shopping center audio systems.) 

May God protect us from Bing Cosby. What will you be singing this “holiday” season?

Signed “Stone of Help”.