Maybe(?) it’s our own fault


“Christmas is for the kids.”

That’s not such a bad sentiment if it’s meant in the Scriptural sense. Unless we become like little children in faith, we will not see the Kingdom of God. But sincerely – over the years – what has this quoted cliché come to mean? Culturally, it has become an all-out license to spoil. The memorial of the birth of Christ has morphed to be synonymous with the enculturation of decadence. No material extravagance is deemed too much. Precisely at the developmental age when children need virtue instilled (and frankly, the Doctrine of the Church), supermom(dad) undergoes a personality split. Kids at best are given a mixed message. Parents indulge themselves in creating Christmas “magic” instead of building an appetite in their offspring for the truly miraculous. What a colossal dereliction of their most profound parenting responsibility.

The paraphernalia, the material objects meant to produce a sensual experience of the unseen metaphysical (that traditionally were intended to promote spiritual transcendence) were hijacked and exponentially multiplied. Saint Nicholas – a holy individual – was figuratively raped and turned into a virtual cartoon. Childhood in true Christian homes should not be the occasion of a lying Parenthood. Parents – even Christian parents - attempt to recreate a Magic Kingdom in their family room, which later competes with Christ’s Kingdom in their children’s memory and psyche.

“Did you get everything you wanted?”

The aspect of quantity is implicit in this question. Christians should be training their children to base moral decisions on need instead of want. One could not accomplish this discipline - even if one purposefully tried eleven months out of the year - if all is cast aside every December, both anticipating and indulging in an annual orgy of greed. Parents, at some time generations back, began this evil contradiction to true Faith. Current parents of young children vicariously attempt to recreate their own satiated greedy high, which they experienced in their youth, thus perpetuating this quest for the next generation. Material ecstasy, while sitting amongst a pile of crumpled wrapping paper is NOT a taste of Heaven! But it speaks LOUDER by example than 364 days of concentrated-but-abstract catechesis to a young mind. And we’re scratching our heads wondering how ChristMass became so commercialized and consumer oriented?!

And now that we’ve corporately messed up our highest profile opportunity to evangelize to the pagan world, we’re attempting to reverse this materialistic behemoth by insisting on Merry Christmas as the greeting of antidote?

“Merry” best describes people staggering around office parties holding a glass of spiked eggnog or a mug of wassail.

We wish you a Holy Christmas
– and a Christ-filled New Year!