What's Good For the Christmas Goose...

My advance apologies to anyone who still takes anything Jerry Falwell says seriously. Click here for his latest diatribe.

Apparently, Christmas is being adulterated. No, not by the spirit of blatant commercialism and materialistic greed. The problem is "the holidays." We've become too aware that there are people out there who do not celebrate Christmas, and even though it is nearly impossible to pick up a quart of milk any time between Thanksgiving week and New Year's without being subjected to Christmas carols, Christmas is not pervasive enough.

In particular, too many people recognize that Christmas does not have a monopoly on December holiday celebrations. Sure, it's the Microsoft of December holidays, but there are one or two others, and celebrating those is taking the thunder away from Christmas, leaving us with the nondenominational "holidays."

Funny thing about that, though. Taking the thunder away from the major celebration is exactly how Christmas ended up in December in the first place. People smarter than I seem to agree that Jesus' birth probably occurred in the springtime. However, back in the 4th century, when emperor Constantine was trying to convert his empire of Pagans into an empire of Christians, the big holiday most of the people celebrated was in midwinter, on or around the time of the winter solstice December 21 or 22. Depending on where you were, this celebration involved decorating with evergreens (particularly holly and mistletoe), hoofed animals pulling an elf who delivered presents, gift-giving, decorating with candles, cake with dried fruit, celebrating rebirth, and in at least one case a 12-day-long celebration of the birth of a king to a virgin. Any of this sounding familiar yet? Anyway, in an effort at empirewide unity, Constantine moved Christmas to December 25. Many components of the pagan celebrations were reassigned new meanings according to the Christmas story, and Christmas as we know it was born.

So Constantine, while not malicious, placed Christmas on December 25 because that was the time of year with the major celebration. However, Jerry Falwell seems to think that it's playing dirty pool when other groups try to emphasize existing celebrations that coincide with--and in some instances predate--Christmas.