Guess what kids...

…Santa Clause is not real (and neither is the tooth fairy).  You can thank me later for letting your kids know the truth.  Now you are free to explain to them the real reason for Christmas. You’re probably not surprised that I didn’t lie to my kids about Santa Claus.  Actually, my parents never tried to pass off Santa as real either, so I guess you could say it runs in the family. 

Now before you turn me or my parents in for child abuse let me explain the problem with Santa Claus, and in a broader sense the commercialized, waterdown, poltically correct version of what we call Christmas.  Before I begin let me explain to you that I’m not history major.  I’m not going to lecture you on the historical basis for Christmas or argue that Jesus was born in some other month and Christmas is really a pagan holiday, but I am going to argue that the current version of the December 25th holiday robs us of celebrating what was the greatest gift given to mankind. 

The first problem I have with our current version of Christmas is Santa Claus.  I won’t go as far as a church in Georgia telling people that Santa Claus is Satan, but he’s pretty close.  Have you ever thought much about the logic of Santa Clause?  I’m not just talking about some person squeezing his fat body down chimneys, riding in a sleigh pulled by flying reindeer and delivering gifts to all the boys and girls in the world in one night. 

I’m talking about that flipping list he keeps.  How nerve-wracking to kids, constantly worrying if they were naughty or nice. What’s more is that Santa never gives the criteria for naughty or nice.  In all the Hallmark Christmas movies about Santa Claus he never tells us flat out what it takes to get on the nice list.  Is the standard set in stone?  Does it change?  What happens if I spill the milk on Christmas Eve, lie about to my parents and blame it on my brother?  What then?! Am I out, the day he’s supposed to show up?!  I couldn’t live with this kind of pressure.

“Oh come on L. Kyle, don’t be such a party pooper, of course kids don’t worry about that.”

Don’t they?  If a kid believes that some fat and jolly guy delivers gifts to them wouldn’t they worry about what gets them on the ‘nice list’?  What about kids who constantly hear from their parents that they are failures?  What hope do they have? Kids believe in Santa because they have faith; faith that mom and dad are telling them truth, faith in things unseen.  And it’s because of that faith that I want them to know the truth about Christmas. 

The second problem I have with December 25th is how water-downed it has become. Christmas should be a time to celebrate that God came down from heaven, down to humanity.  The God of the Bible isn’t a god who sits afar off, inaccessable, but He is a God who loves us so much that he came to us.  He came to us to provide relationship with Himself.  The fact that the Creator of the Universe came down to us is cause to celebrate.  It is a time to gather with our families and celebrate God’s goodness.

But the falacy with our culture is that the meaning behind the Hol(y)day is being stripped away.  God established feasts and festivals for the Nation of Isreal to hold every year so they would not forget what He did for them.  Likewise we should celebrate Christmas not just to buy stuff or have family dinners, but we should celebrate so that we never forget that God Himself came down to us, not to condemn us, but to bring us life. 

The meaning of Christmas is being stripped away not because political correctness, but people want to strip all refernces to God away from us. 

“No L. Kyle, I just don’t want to offend someone who may celebrate Kwanzaa or another holiday, that’s why I say ‘Happy Holidays’”

Nope. If that was the case then December 25 would not be a holiday in this country.  You see, everyone still wants to get the day off, everyone wants to get gifts.  Retailers plan for Christmas, they depend on Christmas to survive.  Our society still wants a day off and to give and get gifts, but it just wants to do it without mentioning God. 

“What about Easter L. Kyle, not a huge fuss over that.”

Of course not because Easter falls on a Sunday during the Spring.  Most of us already get Sunday’s off and retail isn’t dependent on the success of the Easter shopping season.  It’s almost laughable when Target advertises huge discounts for “holiday shopping”.  Or when retailers tell us that there only so-many days of the “holiday shopping season” left.  Do they think we are that stupid?  No they just want to strip God from our culture. 

According to the Education World website (go figure) December is a month of Multicultural Holiday Celbrations.  Here is their list:

Ramadan

Eid al-Fitr

Saint Nicholas day

Eid’ul-Adha

Fiesta of Our Lady of Guadalupe

St. Lucia Day

Hanukkah

Christmas Day

Three Kings Day/Epiphany

Boxing Day

Kwanzaa

Omisoka

Yule

Satumalia

Other than Boxing Day, which is celebrated in the UK, none of these holidays have gift giving as one of their major components except for Christmas.  Yet the “holiday shopping” season is supposed to multi-cultural.  But what are people shopping for?  Christmas gifts or “holiday gifts.”  And why does the mult-cultural shopping season end on December 24th?

It seems to me that people want all the pleasantries of Chirstmas without the meaning of Christmas.  “Give me gifts and a day off,” some would say, but don’t tell me about the real meaning behind it. 

The sad thing about this whole deal is that God gave us His Son as a gift and our society wants us to forget that.

“For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life." John 3:16

Leftovers enjoy.

L. Kyle.

Happy Holidays...

…is what terrorists say. Christmas has been cancelled this year and instead we will be celebrating December 25th.  So Happy December 25th everyone!

I use to cherish the Christmas season; it was truly my favorite time of year.  Besides celebrating the birth of our Lord and Savior, it seems that it’s one of the only times during the year where most people are friendly and kind and where charity seems to be the rule of the day.  Now, however , I find myself irritated at the retailers who push purchasing gifts for that non-descript winter holiday which falls on December 25.  What’s more, any mention of Christmas has been removed from our government square.  Want proof?  Go to the Smithsonian website and check their hours of operations.  They are open “every day except for December 25”, I kid you not, right there in broad daylight on their website.

My fist question is why December 25?  I can almost hear their answer:

 “Well Sir, that’s Christmas.”

“Then why don’t you say, closed on Christmas Day?”

“Well Sir, that might offend someone”

“Then don’t close on Christmas”

“We don’t close on Christmas, we close on December 25.”

Okay, so here’s the breakdown of religious affiliation in the U.S. of A. according to the CIA World Factbook: Protestant 51.3%, Roman Catholic 23.9%, Mormon 1.7%, other Christian 1.6%, Jewish 1.7%, Buddhist 0.7%, Muslim 0.6%, other or unspecified 2.5%, unaffiliated 12.1%, none 4%.  So according to my underachieving high school education, more than 75% of Americans would claim to be affiliated with Christianity in some form or another.  Endo facto the overwhelming majority of Americans—one would think—support the celebration of Christmas rather than the celebration of December 25th.

Yet we continue as a nation to kowtow to the small minority of people who may or may not be offended that as a nation we celebrate Christmas.  Isn’t it true that we live in a democracy where the majority rules?  Yet the minority has hi-jacked Christmas and now my work is having a Holiday Party in the off chance that a Christmas party might offend someone.  If we followed this line of thinking out, shouldn’t have Romney won the election?  Shouldn’t the majority of voters be afraid of offending the minority of voters and concede? Ben Stein, famed presidential speechwriter, author, actor, game show host and economist wrote in 2005:

Next confession: I am a Jew, and every single one of my ancestors was  Jewish. And it does not bother me even a little bit when people call those beautiful lit up, bejeweled trees Christmas trees. I don't feel threatened. I don't feel discriminated against. That's what they are: Christmas trees. It doesn't bother me a bit when people say, "Merry Christmas" to me. I don't think they are slighting me or getting ready to put me in a ghetto. In fact, I kind of like it. It shows that we are all brothers and sisters celebrating this happy time of year. It doesn't bother me at all that there is a manger scene on display at a key intersection near my beach house in Malibu. If people want a creche, it's just as fine with me as is the Menorah a few hundred yards away.

I would venture to say that it is a small percentage of people who are offended by Christmas.  But, they are the ones who are antagonistic about this whole thing and yet we buckle under their attack.   How can this happen, how can the majority of Americans concede that December 25 should be celebrated, but not Christmas?  How can we concede and say “Happy Holidays” when have a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year covers the bases.  What’s the worst thing that could happen?

“I don’t celebrate Christmas L. Kyle.”

“Oh…okay, well have a Happy New Year.”

Do people really go home in a huff, kick their dogs and tell their wives “Well honey it happened four times today! Merry Christmas!  Where do they think they live? This is America, I’m calling the ACLU!”

Upon further investigation there appears to be other forces at work trying to steal Christmas.  For the sake of argument we will call this force “The Grinch” as people generally have an easier time believing in green men living caves above Whoville than they do believing in spiritual forces (either heavenly or demonic). 

The Grinch has devised a two-prong approach to steal Christmas from us.  The first prong is to attack the very day itself.  The Grinch has gotten people’s focus off of the true meaning of Christmas, which is to celebrate the birth of Jesus Christ.  Instead we are caught up in gift-giving and eating lavish meals to the point we forget that while the wise men brought Jesus gifts, they did so to worship Him.  Now, don’t get me wrong, I still enjoy both the giving and receiving of gifts on Christmas morning.  But as a nation our focus is too much on the retail aspect of Christmas.  For Pete’s sake retailers are now open Thanksgiving Day rather than the day after Thanksgiving!

The Grinch has not only succeeded in getting non-Christian’s attention focused on gifts, but they majority of Christians put their attention toward decorating, baking, shopping and parties rather than celebrating their Savior’s birth.  It’s been an effective strategy for the Grinch.  Get people distracted with ancillary items so much they no longer have the strength to fight for Christmas.  If people are so busy shopping, and decorating  and cooking they won't notice that any mention of Christmas at Target has been substituted for “Holidays.”  Distracted people won’t notice that in a predominately Christian society one of their marquee holidays has been removed and replaced with some non-descript winter holiday celebrated on December 25th.

The Grinch’s success rate with this first prong is pretty dang high.  Sure there are a few hold-outs, some boycotts, but really at the end of the day the attack is too widespread, the Christmas supporters are too weak to fight (well with all that midnight shopping and what not).  The destroying of Christmas, however, is really just the by-product of the Grinch’s overall plan of eradicating Christianity as a whole from the public sphere in America. 

Oh come on L. Kyle, why would anyone want to take Christianity away in America?

Because Christianity my dear, is the only religion which claims to be the Truth and the Truth is a threat.  The truth threatens our very selfish way of life; it threatens our in-born desire to do what we want to do.  Christians get called prudes all the time because we seem to put a damper on people’s sinful behavior.  How many times, as kids were we willing to do something bad as long as our parents weren’t around?  That is what Christians are in the rest of the world’s eyes; we are the parent in the room disapproving of bad behavior.

Of course, adults are just grown up kids.  The responsibility level may change, but like kids, adults want to rebel against the moral good.  And that is where the Grinch is succeeding right now.  He’s lied to us.  He has said that temporary pleasure has no ill consequences.  And as a society we have bought into this lie and are rebelling against what we know (or should know) to be harmful all in the name of self-gratification, greed, lust and gluttony. 

So the Grinch’s plan is simple. Eliminate Christianity from America and do so, in part, by stealing Christmas and replacing it with a non-descript winter holiday celebrated on December 25th. 

So don’t be a terrorist, say Merry Christmas this year.  Keep the true Spirit of this Holy Day alive by telling people the real reason why we celebrate Christmas…Jesus Christ.

Leftovers, enjoy

L. Kyle