Every year, the same canard is raised by some Christians: 'Put the Christ back in Christmas' - as a Christian I never thought he left - or have a "Merry Christmas" and not "Happy Holidays."
Shakespeare's classic line, "methinks thou dost protest too much" (actually the line is "The lady doth protest too much, methinks" from Hamlet, Act 3) comes to mind. See? Down through the centuries we even tinker and tamper with the classics to fit today's vernacular.
I laugh at my Christian brothers and sisters who say Christmas is becoming too commercial all the while they plan to string lights outside their home. Let alone begin making a list, checking it twice, before heading off to Wal-Mart, Kmart or any other kind of retail mart to have their hard-earned dollars eagerly turned over at the checkout stand. Is that what Christmas or what the birth of Jesus is really about?
To wish someone "Merry Christmas" before Christmas Eve on Dec. 24 is wrong. Christmas season or Christmastide doesn't actually begin until Dec. 24 and lasts until Jan. 6. Advent season - the Christian Church's new year - begins on Sunday, Dec. 1 and lasts until Dec. 23.
This why I laugh when holier-than-thou Christians have in recent years gone off about how incorrect it is to say "Happy Holidays." Even though this is an inclusive way of greeting people or actually saying goodbye to them in light of three upcoming U.S.-observed holiday of Thanksgiving this year on Nov. 28, Christmas on Dec. 25, in Canada Dec. 26 as Boxing Day - it has nothing to do with a boxing ring - and New Year's Day on Jan. 1.
Saying "Happy Holidays" is not, nor has it ever been, a way to take Christ out of Christmas.
It is the retail sector years and years ago that has promoted the day after the U.S. Thanksgiving as the beginning of the Christmas season. Ironic since some Christians rallying against the commercialization of their holiday have capitulated to the commercial season in saying "Merry Christmas" too early. But they do this because of the lack of knowledge of their own faith's history.
Just recently I discovered President Franklin D. Roosevelt lighted the annual Christmas tree set-up on the Ellipse south of the White House on Christmas Eve back in 1939. (For his personal tree inside he was a stickler for tradition: his tree had to have candles, which didn't make the head of the Secret Service sleep well at night).
Clearly, then, someone has been fiddling with making this holiday come sooner and sooner. Just the other night I saw them light the Christmas Tree at Rockefeller Center in New York City, and it was only Dec. 4.
As for me, I will wait to wish someone "Merry Christmas" until the day of Dec. 24 when I attend midnight mass at my local Anglican parish.
If I lived in the U.S., I could say Happy Holidays before Thanksgiving and be correct and still true to my Christian faith.
Since I live in New Westminster, I will greet everyone with a Happy Holidays.
New Westminster resident Scott Larsen covered faith and religion in Seattle for a weekly newspaper and is a Roosevelt historian.
