Keeping Christ in Christmas

As a child at Our Lady of Lourdes grade school, I and classmates took part in the annual "put Christ back into Christmas" campaign. Some Catholic organization promoted this campaign which I remember being encouraged to accept as a fourth or fifth grader more than 50 years ago. I believe it was a national campaign. Bumper stickers were distributed for cars to use to promote the campaign.

The campaign seemed a little odd to me. I hadn't heard that Christ had been removed from Christmas and needed being put back. Yes, it was popular to abbreviate the word to 'Xmas' but some pointed out that the 'X' was the same thing as the Greek Chi-Rho letter though I don't know how many people knew that. It is true there was as a child a growing materialistic sense of the Christmas holiday. Public displays of the Nativity had not yet been challenged but that seemed fairly secure. What did seem to be a threat was Santa Claus. Santa represented a secular Christmas and some weren't sure he wasn't displacing Jesus from his place in Christmas.

"Miracle on 34th Street" was a 1946 film that attacked the growing commercialization of the Christmas holiday itself without ever specifically mentioning a religious theme. But it also focused on a sense of faith as "believing in someone or something when common sense tells you not to." The buying and selling that increasingly occurred during this season seemed to be the real culprit and the cause of Jesus' displacement.

The secularity of the holiday does not really frighten me though. It has all become a part of the total mix. Santa Claus has been around quite a long time with roots in a Turkish bishop. And modern day Christmas carols like "Silver Bells" and "Winter Wonderland" and "White Christmas" all have a somewhat inspirational feel to them if not a religious one.

The secular Christmas holiday simply offers another opportunity to evangelize. Too many religious people are too comfortable in misunderstanding the Christmas story. Some seem unable to care if anyone else really believes in the Christ story or not. qJesus is indeed the reason for the season but we can best keep Christ in Christmas by living out of his ideals and not those of the American consumer.