My take on the Christmas story

A year ago I made the following comment during this discussion on the origins of Christmas, and I still hold to it: "That touches on something I’ve long thought about the Christmas story, but have never seen any other commentary on- that what the manger scene really demonstrates is what heartless bastards the people of Bethlehem were. Seriously. I’ve seen travelers at a bus station pool their money to buy a crying girl a bus ticket home- but in the Christmas story, we have a teenage girl hours away from giving birth, and nobody will give her as much as a spot on the floor inside where it’s warm. No room at the Inn? What decent Innkeeper's wife wouldn’t have told her husband to sleep on the floor and given Mary the bed? In fact, some women I’ve known, had they been that Innkeeper’s wife, would have told her husband and Joseph both to go sleep with the other animals, and she’d call them if and when they were needed.

To me, the lesson of “Be nice to everyone, because you don’t know their role in the universe” and “As you do to the least of them” is an important one for children to learn- and here is the perfect illustration, and no one is using it."

Merry Christmas to all, and to all a good night!

Christmas presents

For my neglected readers... first, 60 stunning satellite photos of Earth , and "Do You Here What I Hear" performed on non-traditional instruments:

I posted this video a year ago

But it bears repeating.

High frequency carols

Merry Christmas, y'all- and God bless us, every one!

One bit of Santa Claus trivia

they never mention on TV specials is the time he beat up a Unitarian, though it's one of my favorite Christmas stories. Hat tip to American Unitarian Reform

UUdom is a microcosm of society,

and few things illustrate that better than a series of blog discussions the last three weeks concerning "The War On Christmas" and the similar humanist/theist struggle within the UUA. There are two issues in play here; the first I will address is Christmas.

Contrary to the belief of many on both sides of the debate, Christmas was not made a Federal holiday to assert the ascendancy of Christianity in America. Had that been the intent, surely Easter, the most holy of Christian holidays, would have been chosen instead. Why did President Grant pick Christmas, a holiday that had been actively condemned by most Christian churches- even outlawed in many places- and only recently partially rehabilitated by an English novelist and an American poet?

Consider the condition the US was in in 1870. For several of the previous five years, the Civil War had been over only in terms of massed armies; the hatreds ran deep- Lincoln's assassination had been celebrated in many Confederate households. Lawlessness abounded; President Grant had to ask for Federal law enforcement to control the Ku Klux Klan and bring some semblance of order, and to protect the rights of the newly freed slaves. It took until 1870 to bring the last Confederate state back formally into the Union.

Grant wanted something to bring the country back together. It couldn't be a victory celebration; that would have made things worse. What was left that both sides could still have in common? Christmas was chosen as the least controversial; less "Northern" than Thanksgiving, less political than the 4th of July, and especially poignant as celebrating a man of peace. It was a public cry of "Can't we all just get along?" There's a short Discovery channel video about it here

That's the real "reason for the season"... the attempt to find something to reconcile a people divided. The real reason Christmas is a greater tradition in America than in many other countries is not because the US is a "Christian Nation", but because Christmas was used to bring us back together after one of the bloodiest wars in human history. Families that had been separated for years had a "reason" to reunite. The religious nature of the holiday was the excuse needed to swallow bitter pride, to forgive. Had the holiday been secular, it couldn't have overcome the hostility; had it been any more religious, it would have raised new divisions. It was just religious enough.

And so I say to Bill O'Reilly, and to the Freedom From Religion people alike: let's put the Peace back in Christmas.

Next: the UU divide.

Perhaps these should be included in the Holiday displays

Babbo Natale, Italy has its own Father Christmas. But it's La Befana, the ugly, broom-flying and present-wielding witch who keeps children on their toes in many parts of the country...

Few European Christmas traditions elicit as many diverse and divergent opinions as Black Pete of the Netherlands. Santa's former slave may have been whitewashed in recent years, but many still view him as a racist caricature from the country's colonial past...

In Austria, Santa keeps track of who's been naughty and nice -- and unleases a 7-foot-tall horned devil on the naughty. He's called the Krampus, and he's unlike any Christmas tradition you've ever seen...

Some of the world's most curious Christmas traditions can be found in Catalonia, where the idea of holiday cheer seems to involve some of life's more basic bodily functions...

Read about these, and many more at Europe's weird ways

If you're like me, you're probably sick of hearing about "The War On Christmas",

but you just might find this take on it interesting.

A Christmas video

This is worth 2:39 of your time:

I wish we could have done this. But hey, we have gotten a lot of good faxes sent to Washington.