A Christmas Essay
What to say? What to say to the worldly-wise skeptic? The postmodern secular humanist that has evolved far beyond the beliefs of their youth. “Yes, I used to love Christmas, used to deck my halls and ho ho ho and all that. But then it became so obvious. It’s a made up holiday, stuck on top of a pagan celebration just to get people thinking about Jesus.”
How to answer this? With a clucking tongue? With hate filled disdain for those that have lost the meaning amongst the shopping and getting? How about another option – tell the truth?
You say it’s a made up holiday? Absolutely correct. 100% true. We don’t know when Jesus was born, and anyone who says otherwise is making things up. Here’s a thought. Let’s say you adopt a child. A toddler. But on the paperwork the date of birth is blank. You try to find out, but no dice. No birthday. Are you going to celebrate this child through the years? Of course, you are! You are going to make up a birthday, fill in that blank, and celebrate the heck out of that day every year. And that is what has been done.
So what day to pick? So you are living in the days long before electricity, long before central heat. And there is this day that is the coldest, the longest night, the bleakest. The winter solstice. Yeah, that is a pretty good time to celebrate a baby, a bit of hope, God become man. And every night after that is a little shorter, the days a little longer. The winter solstice, the smack dab middle of winter. Time to check the cellar and storehouse, will we have enough to make it to spring? Maybe a little extra? So let’s celebrate, let’s get that giant log on the fire so we don’t have to go out to the wood pile tonight. Yes, let’s celebrate Jesus tonight.
And what about Jesus? Hark the herald and have a holly jolly? Isn’t the story more than that? About a man scared out of his wits – desperate to find a place for his wife, because she is telling and yelling, not because he really understands what is about to happen. And a manger, and hay piled to comfort, cloaks spread – not the ideal way to see your bride’s nakedness for the first time. And pain, of yelling, panting, fluid, a broken hymen and a baby. And a little girl gives birth to a little boy.
Silent night – maybe. Holy Night, certainly.
In the New York Book Review it was pointed out that the original celebration at this time of the year was based on the Roman Saturnalia which in turn incorporated pagan beliefs. The “celebrations” were such that in the 1600’s the Puritans made it illegal to celebrate the “holiday” in Massachusetts & in the 1800’s local businessmen got so fed up with the chaos & destruction of property during the “celebrations” that they worked to get them moved indoors.. Prior to this change it had been customary for upper class people to give gifts to their servants usually consisting of something already in their household but once it was moved indoors then it was unlikely that a family member would want something already in their home so buying gifts became the custom. So a win-win for the business men.
In the trauma unit at Cook County, if the woman wasn’t beat up too much and she was in labor, I’d just referred to O.B. to get her off my hands. I had plenty of knifed and shot up patients along with car trauma patients to deal with. Learned a lot but it sucked.
On the other hand there is no evidence that Jesus was NOT born on December 25.
For the record I LOVE Christmas, its meaning, and all the ritual and cheer that goes with it. And I believe the original Nativity actually occurred.
That said …
My entirely secular version of this was about 20 years, a couple days before Christmas, midnight-ish in the ER, and the doors boom open and flying in via wheelchair was a twenty-something with her knees up to her ears, amniotic soaked, screaming her drug addict head off. She didn’t know how far along she was, had never bothered with any (free) pre-natal care, but had recently switched from IV drugs to pills because she wanted to do what was best for the baby (true hx). I walked out of the exam room fuming, snapping gloves off because I was caught, trapped by the damnable EMTALA abuse, and this birther was in active labor, and I was stuck with her. Calls to a very sympathetic OB down the road who agreed that yeah, we couldn’t move her, and was there anything he could do to help, and no, not now… had a pediatrician coming in for possible resuscitation of a narcotic-depressed newborn, and starting to gown up and head back in when a nitwit nurse gleefully exclaimed, “It’s a Christmas baby!” I whirled on her and growled, ere I stomped out of sight, “This is NOT a Christmas baby! There are no camels or palm trees in the parking lot, I haven’t seen a wise man all night, and there are damn sure no virgins in here!”
You birthed her. At least one wise man was in attendance!
🤣🤣