Saturday, November 22, 2014

HO! HO! HO! HAPPY HOLIDAYS

I'm going to reveal something so if you don't want your children to know that you've been lying to them don't let them read this.

It's that time of year. The time when many Christians behave un-Christ like. Many of us display hatred for other and show a tremendous lack of the faith that we claim to have.

We lie to our children about a fat man flying around the world in a vessel powered by reindeer. We lie that he comes down our chimney to leave toys and gifts for everyone.

Believe me, I love this fantasy as much as anyone but IT AIN'T TRUE!

It's a fantasy of good clean fun except we pretend that it has something to do with the birth of Christ. I've read the story of St. Nick. It is a feel good story but it is all fantasy and today, our behavior doesn't even come close.

This very spiritual holiday has become a huge spending orgy for the sake of economics. This would be a good thing if it was about the fantasy but when we pretend that it is spiritual we lie.

The popular Christian comic and songwriter, Mark Lowry said it well, "Instead of putting Christ back in Christmas we should put Christ back in Christians."

Christians have begun to show a lack of faith and some weird desire to be a victim. This victim mentality must be insulting to God. We pretend that someone is trying to steal Christmas away from us. It simply isn't possible if we truly have faith.

We act insulted if someone says "Happy Holidays" instead of "Merry Christmas." A lady called a business that I used to manage and pretended to be insulted that our phone greeting was "Happy Holidays." She scolded me as she asked why we didn't say "Merry Christmas?" I told her that I did but not in those precise words.

I later instructed my staff to use our standard phone greeting "Thank you for calling ________ . This is _________ . How may I help you?

Happy Holidays. Merry Christmas. What difference does it make? Both are friendly greetings. Happy Holidays does seem to be a broader and more inclusive greeting to Christians and Jews as well as other faiths and non-believers. What could be more Christ like than wishing everyone well?

The department store industry has traditionally been Jewish controlled. When I go into one they have Christmas decorations. The sign over the door says "Stein" or "Kohl" which are Jewish names. They've displayed a courtesy of recognizing my Christian holiday and I appreciate them for it although just like all businesses they really want my money.

Oftentimes when a stranger says "Have a nice day" they don't care about your day. They were just being friendly. Thank them and move on.

I debated with a friend recently. He felt that the term "Happy Holidays" is new and an attempt to undermine Christmas. New? I suppose that would depend on how old you are. Irvin Berlin wrote the song "Happy Holidays" in 1941. Santa Claus did say "Ho, Ho, Ho Merry Christmas" before that so I suppose he does have a leg up.

If we Christians aren't insulted about the bastardization of our sacred holiday brought about by the lies of Santa Claus we reveal a huge hypocrisy when we pretend to be offended by "Happy Holidays."