There is a local radio station that plays Christmas music twenty-four-seven this time of year. In the space between songs, they interview children regarding their favorite thing about Christmas. The response that has been playing for the past couple days is a young boy who answers, “If I lived a long time ago, I would say Jesus, but since I don’t, my favorite thing is the presents.” Of course, there are numerous problems with this, too many to dive into really, but the main point is that the idea of gift giving has not only ceased to be connected with the Christ Child, but has also usurped Him altogether. It is one thing for the secular to supplant the sacred, but in the case of Christmas, the secular has secularized the sacred. That is, it has taken actions and symbols that are historically religious in origin and has removed the religion form them. Nowhere is this better illustrated than in the case of Santa Claus.
Of course, everyone knows that the image of Santa comes from a Catholic Saint: Saint Nicholas. Yet somehow the person of Santa has been disassociated from his proper history: the humble Bishop who gave away his belongings to help the townspeople. He now comes complete with the North Pole, Mrs. Claus, elves, and reindeer. I have been searching for sometime for the proper adjective to describe this phenomenon. The other day, I read an article from the homeschooling magazine Mater et Magistra and found my long sought after adjective. This juxtaposition of the secular Santa with anything authentically Christmas is jarring:
“Not only is it difficult to fully appreciate what God has done in becoming man, it’s also hard to focus on Christ during this time of the year because of all the unavoidable distractions. No matter how non-existent Santa is in your home, he’s absolutely everywhere else. Lately they’ve even got him kneeling next to the manger. That’s a good thing, I know, but when you were trying to transport your mind and heart to the incredible night when Christ was born, seeing Santa there is jarring. The kings, the camels, the cow, donkey and sheep all help. Santa does not. He distracts us.” (“Mary and the Church” by Maria Rioux, Mater et Magistra Volume 3, Number 3)
The kings, the camels, the cow, donkey, and sheep were all part of the original Nativity scene. Santa was not.
I even know a priest who pulled a stunt one year at the Christmas Eve Mass. After the homily, he arranged for Santa Claus to visit the church. Santa quietly entered from the Sacristy, and he and the priest walk over to the creche set and prayed in front of the infant Jesus. The point, I gather, was that Santa should somehow lead us to Jesus, and admittedly the intention was good. The problem is, it didn’t work. The children, rather than focussing on the Christ Child, remembered only one thing: Santa was at Church tonight. Of course, many parents thought it was a greatest homily ever preached, though few could remember the actual homily. For my own part, it was simply jarring. On the second most solemn night of the entire liturgical year, when our hearts and minds are supposed to be wrapped, like swaddling clothes, around the infant Jesus, they were instead lost in the secular image of the man from the North Pole.
What is to be done? Is the image of Saint Nicholas lost forever? I don’t think so, but I think it would take radical steps in order to rescue the saintly bishop from the jolly old elf. The first step is to associate the man not with Christmas Day, but rather with his feast day on December 6. Feast days are give to us by the Church for a reason - celebrate them!
The second step brings us back full circle to the quote form the radio. Santa and presents go hand in hand. Rescuing Saint Nicholas from his secular self will necessarily involve rescuing gift-giving from the clutches of commercialism. We give gifts to express the gift of the Christ Child, not to satisfy our deepest longings for the latest fashions, technologies, and toys. Simplify your Christmas. Our family gives three gifts to each child to represent the three gifts of the Magi.
Above all, keep the Liturgy at the center of the Solemnity. Don’t fall into the temptation to go to Christmas Eve Mass so that Christmas Day is “free from distraction.” Midnight Mass is brilliant, and it is well worth the late hours, yet not feasible for all ages. Yet Mass on Christmas Day is unique in itself and can go a long way in setting the tone for the celebration. Our family wakes up on Christmas morning bright and early for the first available Mass. After Mass we come home for a formal breakfast, and after breakfast we pray Lauds together. Only after that do we even consider opening a gift.
Have the children open gifts one at a time. The worst thing a child can do is to tear into one gift after another, always looking for something “better”. In fact, I’ll go one step further. The solemnity of Christmas lasts through the entire octave (and the season of Christmas long past that). Spread the gift giving out to emphasize that the Christmas Season did not begin the day after Thanksgiving and end on the 25th of December, but rather begins on Christmas Day and lasts throughout the next several weeks.
Simplify your Christmas, and keep it about the infant Jesus, not about Santa. At the very least, keep the Creche about Christ - no jarring Santas.
I'll be attending the Missa in Nocte this year (EF) because I'm singing in the schola but I'll still want to attend a solemn celebration of the Missa in Die (at either the London or Oxford Oratory). As a child (1950s) I remember we always attended the low mass on Christmas morning before opening the presents. My mother disliked the Midnight Mass because too many of the congregation had just turned out of the pub, and it showed!
ReplyDeleteJohn,
ReplyDeleteThank you for your comments. Inknow you left a few. I will try to get to each of them in turn. Count your blessings that you have EF Christmas Masses available in your area. We have the EF in our Dioces, but it seems limited to only one Sunday Mass, and even then it is quite a bit away for our family. Part of the reason the "old" crowd went to early Masses on Christmas had to do with the extended Communion fast. If you went to a later Mass, the morning could be quite hungry for you. From what I understand, though inam open to correction, a similar lengthy fast governed the midnight Mass. Thus, those who attended this Mass would come home and basically feast! Imagine attending Mass from twelve until 1:30 or even 2:00, coming home and staying up for a rather large meal. Of course, these are the kindsof things that instill Catholic culture in us and the world in which we live. Thierry absence, it is no wonder that we have a lapse in Catholic identity.