It’s Christmas Time – Celebrate!

We are about to celebrate a very special national holiday that evokes joyful memories of past Christmases and anticipation of the joys we will experience this December 25th.

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I say we, but tragically the we does not include a lot of very unhappy people who consider celebrating Christmas an affront to those who do not recognize the birth of Jesus Christ as an occasion of unalloyed joy. Some of them expend a lot of energy doing whatever they can to deprive the rest of us of the joy of Christmas. I just watched a debate on Fox News between a militant atheist and the President of the Catholic League, the equally militant Dr. Phil Donahue. To the atheist, anything such as a symbol connected with Christmas is an affront to nonbelievers such as himself. He was, like many of his fellow grinches, a militant foe of the public display of such symbols of the Feast Day as Christmas trees. You have to feel a modicum of pity for such poor unfortunates who willfully deprive themselves of an opportunity to participate in a celebration that evokes in the celebrants feelings of unalloyed joy. How sad! Especially if their unbelief stretches back to their childhood when they were thus deprived of the joys of anticipating what gifts they would find under the family Christmas tree on Christmas morning. It is even sadder that their consolation for their self-deprivation of the joys of Christmas lies solely in their determination to deprive the rest of us of the joys inherent in celebrating the birth of Jesus Christ. To such unfortunates the very sight of a symbol of the feast day such as a Christmas tree - especially one erected by an official body - is an affront to their tender sensibilities and one that must be removed from public sight. Such people tend to seek removal of any Christmas tree erected by some federal, state or local government. To them, publicly erected or sanctioned Christmas trees somehow violate the separation of Church and State. It is instructive to recognize that the anti-Christmas contingent seldom includes members of other religious bodies, most of whom celebrate the day along with the rest of us. A former employer once said to me that anyone who doubts the Divinity of Jesus Christ need only to look at the universality of the celebration of his birth which has endured countless centuries to show them the truth. This is probably the last Christmas, my 85th, that I will be around to celebrate. I am blessed to be surrounded by my six living offspring and my grandchildren, all but one whom live within a stones throw and the other, my eldest son who lives only a couple of hundred miles away. These are the gifts my beloved late wife bequeathed me. They hover around me, my two daughters often feed me with their tastiest recipes, and tell me what I may eat and may not devour, especially since I just learned that I am, like some of my maternal ancestors, a diabetic. I count it a blessing that I was able to live for 84 years eating and drinking whatever I damned well pleased. Anyway, I wish you all a very merry Christmas and a happy new year. I hope that Santa will be good to you and that our dear Lord will clasp you to his breast, watch over you and grant you every blessing and grace. Pax Domine sit Semper Vobiscum.