Let's put the X back in Xmas!

No, I'm not really advocating an X-rated holiday.

I'm referring to those who lament our culture's loss of the "true meaning of Christmas" -- as if religion had ever been central to the holiday.

Those who call for "putting Christ back in Christmas" are only confessing their profound historical ignorance, though I'm confident they don't realize it.

Every December 25th, I watch Christmas Unwrapped:

People all over the world celebrate the birth of Christ on December 25th. But why is the Savior's nativity marked by gift giving, and was He really born on that day? And just where did the Christmas tree come from?

Take an enchanting journey through the history of the world's favorite holiday to learn the origins of some of the Western World's most enduring traditions. Trace the emergence of Christmas from pagan festivals like the Roman Saturnalia, which celebrated the winter solstice. Learn how Prince Albert introduced the Christmas tree to the English speaking world in 1841. And discover how the patron saint of children was transformed into Jolly old Santa Claus by British settlers in the New World.

Come in from the cold for a Christmas celebration that has it all.

That description doesn't really give you a sense of how thoroughly this program debunks any possible claim that Christmas was ever primarily Christian.

The Christians have a much stronger argument against Easter, which is a real Christian holiday that's been paganized, secularized, commercialized, etc. The Easter Bunny is a recent invention and genuine distraction.

Christmas is the opposite. It is a pagan holiday, resisted by the Church for four centuries, reluctantly (and unsuccessfully) "Christianized" by an attempt to convert pre-Christian symbols and very unChristian rituals.

Christmas was banned in Puritan England and in Puritan New England, as well, because it was seen as raucous and sinful -- more like modern New Year's than modern Christmas. America's Founding Fathers (both sets) did not celebrate Christmas. Even when Americans had begun to celebrate Christmas in the streets, you couldn't find it in the Protestant churches, which only began holding Christmas celebrations to keep their congregations from observing Christ's Mass among the Catholics.

Christmas Unwrapped is from The History Channel. (I was going to call it the War Channel, but I understand Fox News has taken over that role.)

It has the usual nonsense about the Industrial Revolution creating poverty, "Robber Barons" somehow taking their wealth from the poor -- all the standard soft socialism, economic illiteracy, and quasi-Marxist class conflict theory that I've come to expect from academic historians. It even states as fact that the 19th-century U.S. Postal Service was efficient! Tell it to Lysander Spooner, you lazy-brained know-nothings.

But despite its flaws, I do recommend the documentary. Especially the first half. It is fascinating to learn the ancient roots of symbols and rituals, the significance of timing, the political battles involved (e.g., for the first few centuries "A.D.", the Church didn't want to recognize the birth of Jesus as an official holiday because they weren't yet settled on the question of his historical human existence -- in other words, Resurrection could be treated as metaphorical, but Nativity was taking a stance on the "made flesh" aspect of the God-made-flesh concept).

Here's a favorite bit of Christmas trivia: New York City's first professional police force was founded in response to a Christmas riot the previous year. Here's another: demographic historians find that there was, even among New England Puritans (who supposedly didn't celebrate Christmas) a spike in conception rates around the 25th of December.

Love it or hate it, Christian, non-Christian, secular, etc., Christmas has been around for longer than the Christians have, and it ain't going anywhere, so stop bitching about it. Celebrate raucously, get together with family if that's your thing, or crawl into a hole and hide from it like I do. And consider making a review of the history of Christmas a part of your ritual.