We Let Them Take The Christ Out Of Christmas

A personal perspective

By Dennis Daily

LOS ANGELES, CA (November 28, 1998) — It is no secret that, with
each passing year, what is perceived as the “Christmas season” begins
earlier and earlier. We’ve come a long way from the time that hardly
anyone really got excited about Christmas until Christmas Eve.

Many of us are old enough to remember a time when most people didn’t
even put up and decorate the tree until the 24th. It then remained
in place until Twelfth Night. On that night, people would bring
their trees to the city square or park and have a huge bonfire to
celebrate the official end of the Christmas season. The next day, of
course, being Epiphany.

Still though, year after year, we hear sermons preached about the
secularization of Christmas. We hear loud complaints from the pulpit
about the way the commercial world has STOLEN Christmas. Actually,
from my point of view, we Christians actually GAVE CHRISTMAS AWAY.

Last year, as way of building my case, I called more than a dozen
major American Christian radio stations and networks providing
Christian programming. Not one said it planned on playing Christmas
music more than just a few days after Christmas. Several said that
they planned on putting it away on the night of the 26th. Only one
said it MIGHT play a few seasonal songs past the first of January.

What really amazed me was the comment I got from one of the disc-
jockeys at one of the largest Christian radio stations in the US. He
told me, “Well, the 12 Days of Christmas END on Christmas, don’t
they?”

Isn’t that the problem? Even the Christian media thinks that
Christmas is over when Christmas dinner is put in the refrigerator
and the dishes are washed. I really don’t think that any of us has
the right to complain about Christmas being “stolen” when we do
little, if anything, to actually keep the religious aspects of the
holiday as a counterpoint to the secular.

Isn’t a vital part of Christianity, the WITNESSING of our faith? What
better way than to actually celebrate Christmas according to the pre-
commercial tradition. Not to sound flip, but, think about it. Not
only would churches and groups sponsoring Christmas parties find
fewer “no vacancy” signs in restaurants and convention centers, but
the prices would be less were we to hold our concerts, celebrations
and parties AFTER Christmas….between the 25th of December and the
6th of January. And, if we look a little out of place celebrating
the Birth of Christ and the Christmas season in early January (while
we await the arrival of the Wise Men), maybe our “oddly timed
celebration” would tell the commercial world that WE are the ones who
really own Christmas, they don’t.

Advent was never designed as a time to celebrate the birth of the
Christ Child. The more that we Christians go along with the all-too-
early observance of Christmas, the more we play into the hands of
those who are more interested in selling the holiday, not celebrating
it. It may be too early for this time around, but it would be an
interesting way to ring in the new Millennium…. actually
celebrating Christmas beginning with the vigil on Christmas Eve.
That’s the way they did it when the First Millennium was coming to a
close.

If it’s good enough for the pre-megastore Church, it’s good enough
for me!

Dennis Daily is a correspondent for the UPI Radio Network. He has recently
re-located in Los Angeles after spending 20 years in Washington DC,15 of
them with UPI. His previous credentials include being an all-news anchor
in Washington DC, one of the original producers of the “Larry King Show,” a
Congressional Press Secretary and a national spokesman for the USDA. He is
the product of Catholic schools in Indiana and, this Christmas Eve, will
return to his hometown of Washington, Indiana, to broadcast four hours from
five churches on his hometown radio station for the 25th time! He is a
former Religion Editor for UPI Radio and remains a frequent contributor to
the network’s daily religion feed to its affiliated stations.

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