NOVEMBER 27, 2019 – Less than a month ’til Christmas. Given the overnight blizzard, Thanksgiving in these parts, at least, will be a white one.
Oops! I hear disapproving groans over “Christmas” in place of “December 25” and “Thanksgiving” instead of “Genocide Memorial Day.” Know that my own relationship with religion (and revisionist history?) is a long, convoluted one, ending in a clean break.
Technically, the turkey holiday isn’t a “religious” one, but Christians who feel a religious affinity with the Pilgrims treat Thanksgiving as a quasi-religious matter. Back when I was an active church member and religious believer (albeit Lutheran – ELCA—fairly liberal within the spectra of Christian dogma), our church was packed to the gills for a “Service of Thanksgiving” on the eve of Thanksgiving. Whatever. Religious or not, Christian affinity or not, I see nothing wrong with calling the day “Thanksgiving.” Hindu, Buddhist, Christian, Jewish, Muslim, atheist, agnostic, Confucian or just plain “confused,” why can’t we set aside a national day of thanksgiving—if nothing else than for “Black Friday” to give retail sales a boost?
Think what you will of the Pilgrims, Miles Standish, small pox, severed heads stuck on pikes; whatever the Indians and Pilgrims did to each other, whatever they did together, and whatever they ate on that first Thanksgiving, so-called, in 1621. By putting all reality aside and displaying fine tapestries capturing an idyllic New England autumnal scene where lambs and lions—often within the same individual—sat down at familiar American picnic tables amidst a bounteous harvest is good for the national soul. And God (or “god,” “Jesus,” “Shiva,” “Buddha,” “Mohamed,” “Abraham,” “Confucius”) knows, we can use unifying reinforcement.
Then there’s December 25—“Christmas,” if you will. Sure, the name has “Christian” all over it. Both “Christmas” and “Christian” have the same origin—for Christ’s sake! So what if the Christmas tree was actually a pagan custom and December 25 a wholly arbitrary date chosen by The Church to commemorate the appearance of a newborn magically conceived? The momentum acquired by “Christmas” through the ages was thanks to Christians. Shake your head all you wish, but without Christianity, good, bad and indifferent, December 25 would never have become a red date among 30 black ones on the December calendar.
Calling it “Christmas” is no skin off any non-Christian’s nose. It’s a day off for everyone (except for ER staff, thank God, god, Buddha, Shiva, et alia), irrespective of belief or non-belief. And what’s wrong with exchanging presents, volunteering at the local homeless shelter, or imbuing our kids and grandkids . . . and ourselves . . . with wondrous imaginings about the over-night suspension of time so that a corpulent, red-attired guy from the North Pole can defy gravity and haul around in a gift-bearing sled pulled by eight reindeer? And what’s wrong with “giving” the Christians their “star”—a supernova visible to all?
We need to lighten up and hold onto anything and everything that can hold us together.
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© 2019 Eric Nilsson
