Author: darcee

Just one more Catholic wife and mother on the internet, blogging about homeschooling, living the faith and all that sort of thing.
Christmas Alliance

Have Yourself a Merry Little Whatever.

darceeLeave a comment

The cashier at the store in the red Santa hat smiled and said, “Happy Holidays” as she handed me my change, I smiled back and said,  “Merry Christmas.”

 

I never envy retail workers and during the Christmas shopping season my heart really goes out to them.  It can be the worst time of year to be dealing with the public.  There are those cheerful souls, the ones who come in from pouring rain or drifting snow, if they don’t find exactly what they want they are delighted enough to find something they didn’t expect.  They are content to wait in line knowing everyone is busy and the store staff is working as hard as they can.  These are the ones who thank the floor person for the extra help, hum Christmas carols to themselves while they let the old woman with the huge package ahead of them in line; they hand out candy canes to the checkout clerk and drop a dollar into the Salvation Army bucket.  But these folks are literally one in one hundred. 

 

Grumpy and Unhappy customers seem to be much more common, maybe one in thirty. 

 

Grumpy the Holiday Shopper comes in with their nose out of joint that they had to walk a whole 100m across the parking lot and they grumble about the weather.  This person is likely as not to go ballistic when the latest in thing is sold-out and crossly interrogate to floor person to see if there might be one in the back storage.  They stand unhappily in line sure that the store staff is dawdling just to make people wait and feel very put out if another register is opened and the manager assists the old woman with the huge package behind them to the front of the new line.   To this customer there is nothing safe to say. Merry Christmas or Happy Holidays, saying either could land you in trouble if you are a store clerk during the Christmas season.

 

It could be that Grumpy the Holiday shopper is not a Christian.  They are just there because their toaster broke and they needed one.  It could be that they are very sensitive to the different faiths of our plural society, they don’t want to see anyone offended and are put-out that they have to buy Christmas presents for their nominally religious family members because they are going to “The Big Holiday Feast” at their mother-in-law’s.  For any myriad of reasons Grumpy the Holiday shopper doesn’t want to be wished “Merry Christmas”.  And Lord have mercy on the clerk or store manager if they are because Grumpy is going to take out all their Holiday frustrations on them both.  And if the clerk and manager don’t bow low enough and act subservient enough you can bet that Grumpy will be writing letters to headquarters instead of Santa.

 

So the manager will bow low to Grumpy and tell the staff “No more ‘Merry Christmas’, let’s just stick to ‘Happy Holidays’”.  Happy Holidays is safe enough.  No one could be offended there.  It is traditional, been around a while, featured in songs and cards for as long as any of us remember.  Safe, won’t make anyone angry and certainly won’t lead to complaint letters being fired off to head quarters.   

 

Then comes in Unhappy the Christmas shopper.  They are there because it is Christmas and they are Christian.  They Celebrate Christmas with a Capital C and they always remember the Reason for the Season, it is emblazoned on the bumper sticker on the back of their car.   Last week at worship they heard a great sermon about the “War on Christmas” and, being a good prayer warrior, they are looking to defend traditional Christian values in a secular world, while making a quick stop at the local store to pick up the latest consumer item.  They aren’t happy to be there.  They are less happy when they realize that said item is sold out.  They are not happy that the floor person won’t go back to the back room to look for it on the flimsy excuse that they had checked earlier.  They don’t want to wait in line and when the new register opens up and the store manager escorts the old woman with the huge package to the front of the new line they feel a twinge of guilt that they hadn’t noticed her behind them because they were too busy looking at the clerks un-godly nose piercing and wondering if they would be able to find a quick way to witness to them.  Finally Unhappy reaches the front of the line and forces out a cheerful “Merry Christmas” to which the clerk dutifully replies “Happy Holidays. How dare they not acknowledge the religious significance of the Lord’s birth in our Great Nation founded on Faith, God and Religious Liberty? Lord have mercy on the clerk and store manager because Unhappy is going to take out all their Christmas frustrations on them both.  And if the clerk and manager don’t bow low enough and act subservient enough you can bet that Unhappy will be writing letters to headquarters instead of Santa.

 

It is at this point that the floor person reconsiders the offer to work in their brother’s auto body shop, the store clerk with the nose-piercing decides to go back to college and the store manager decides to enlist in the Army.  Life in retail during the big shopping season is hard.  And right now the “Christmas wars” are just adding to the frustration.

 

I have mentioned before that I am a big fan of a firm separation of Church and State.  But I am also a big fan off people just lightening up a little bit and not taking things so very, very seriously.  If your local “Shop Mart” or “Mall Store” aren’t plastering Nativity scenes and “Merry Christmas” all over the store it is actually pretty normal.  As a child I remember Christmas in “Small Town America”.  I remember a lot of  “Happy Holidays” banners, sure the court house had a nativity in the front,  but the decorations around town consisted mostly of white garland and green and red Christmas bows and balls and lots of flocking.  Ahhh the 70s in ranch country Oregon. 

 

But it also will not kill anyone, nor should it offend anyone to hear a store clerk say “Merry Christmas”.   And when stores and shopping centers do the almost unheard of thing of having “Christmas” included in something it is more a matter that most Americans celebrate the nominally Christian Holiday know as Christmas by shopping for all the latest consumer good and  giving lots of gifts.  It is the minority of Americans who actually celebrate Christmas the Nativity of Jesus Christ.  While Christians “own” the Nativity of Christ the word “Christmas” does not necessarily dictate that one is celebrating that event.  “Christmas” is also celebrated as a completely secular event by many people. Jesus is the “Reason for the Season” but there are other reasons to celebrate Christmas and not all Americans are in it for the same thing. In a free society where diverse religious expression is honored that should be OK.   I think both the secular and Christian community would benefit from remembering this.

 

So, for what it is worth, here are my “let’s be sensible and get a grip” suggestions:

 

Jesus is the reason for my season.  If you want to celebrate Santa and presents have fun.  You can even call your celebration Christmas. It is OK to celebrate Christmas however you want.  It can be a religious holiday or not as a person’s conscience and pleasure dictate.  

 

If your local community has a Nativity Scene, Christmas tree or “Charles Dickens’s Christmas on Main Street Celebration” that’s OK.   Because the community, municipality, state or other, is not creating a State religion they are honoring the diverse religious expression of their community by paying a brief and innocuous homage to a very important celebration of one of their cultural groups.  If you would like them to honor your particular celebration look into setting up something.   Chair the annual Summer Solstice Picnic and art festival in the park and see what happens.  If your Christian neighbors complain promise them that come Christmas time their Nativity Scene is safe on the Courthouse lawn and that the annual Summer Solstice Picnic and art festival does not mean the community, municipality, state or other, is creating a State religion they are honoring the diverse religious expression of their community by paying a brief and innocuous homage to a very important celebration of one of their cultural groups. 

 

If your local school has a Winter Pageant and there are Christmas carols and nods to other faiths and traditions that is all ok.  Don’t get in a twist over the carols or the fact that it is a “Winter” pageant.  Since you were a kid in school many families have moved into your community, some of them are Hindi and some are Muslim and a few are other things you haven’t heard of.  The school wants to include them all and that is ok.  If you just moved here and don’t like the carols grow a thicker skin, this is a plural society and some of us sing carols. 

 

If you are a teacher or a principal and your students say Merry Christmas or sing carols or write poetry or essays or do art work depicting the birth of Christ that is OK.  They have the right to express their faith.  You have the right to express your faith too, or lack of faith, even if it is different than mine, but you don’t have the right to try to indoctrinate the children in it.  That goes just as much if you agree with me as if you don’t. 

 

If you are a Christian business owner, or just one looking to market to Christians it is ok to play carols and say “Merry Christmas”.  It is also ok to say “Happy Holidays”, “Happy Hanukkah” or “Good Yule.”   “Have a nice day”, is ok by me too.  Please feel free to celebrate Christmas or not.  If I am in your store and you wish me a good Eid ul-Fitr I will smile and say thank you.  Your Holiday, not mine, but that is ok I am not particularly in a rush to freak out over other people exercising their constitutionally guaranteed liberties.

 

The Christian community who would seek to blackmail stores into “Keeping Christ in Christmas” are not only misguided they are shooting themselves in the foot.  You can not force someone to faith.  If they don’t believe it they might say it to placate their Christian Christmas shoppers, but is that really the change we want?   By boycotting stores who sing out “Happy Holidays” we are only doing that which we should fear most.  We are telling others how they must worship, what their faith should be.  We are infringing on religious liberty.   The time may come where mainstream Christianity is a definite minority, in some places this is reality.  Caution should be our watchword when it comes to what we view as acceptable when it comes to commerce and religion.

 

If you are in a store in December and you had to walk 100m across the parking lot in the sleet only to find the item you wanted sold out, thank the floor clerk when they let you know they have none in the back storage. When you get in line and the line is long, relax, hum a little tune, maybe even a Christmas Carol.  Let the old lady with the huge package ahead of you in line.  Don’t stress out if people behind you are beckoned to the newly opened register.  When the checkout clerk says “Good Yule” smile and say “Marry Christmas” and give her a candy-cane or at least a smile and don’t forget to drop a few coins in the Salvation Army bucket.  Write your letters to Santa or if it is to the store’s headquarters say something nice about the staff, working retail in December is hard.  

 

And last but not least.  Have a Merry Christmas.

Christmas Alliance

My world

Golden Morning

darceeLeave a comment

This is one of those overcast winter mornings where the sun breaks just under the clouds and bathes the city in a gold light.  It is so beautiful.

 I have survived another crazy weekend.    Blogging is light right now — real life is pressing in all around and I just don’t have a great deal of time.

We are working on the usually insane homeschool, Catholic, Christmas.  I will try to post more later.

Christmas Alliance · My world

Cards and Letters

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I will admit that while I love the idea of Christmas cards I really fail at sending them.  Once in a while, about every five years or so,  I will get the time, energy, stamps, cards, addresses and inspiration together long enough to get them out.  But usually I just look at the boxes of cards in the store… I used to buy them and then feel badly as I tossed them sadly unset into the recycling in mid- August.  The worst year I found about 1/3 of my Christmas cards, stamped and ready to go, under the passenger seat of the mini-van in mid-February.  It seemed rather late to send them at that point.

I am in generally a horrible correspondent.  I really enjoy writing and I love reading what my friends are doing, but I also suffer from a raging case of procrastination and will sometimes go for months or even years between contact with people I really like.  So I love getting the obligatory Christmas letter that seems so often maligned.

I can understand that some people find that letter annoying.  You know the one.  It comes exactly two weeks before Christmas sporting the family picture with everyone (including the pets) wearing matching sweaters and your old friend from years gone by gushing about their latest wonders and the perfect home/spouse/job/kids and their fantastic accomplishments/vacations/awards.   Actually I don’t get that letter.  I get the ones from the people I know — sometimes in March.  They talk about babies and homeschooling and all those fun things that I love hearing about anyhow.  Sometimes they have picture with half the family blinking and the other half with demon eyes and most the time there are little anecdotes that include all the rough spots as well as the good. 

I would love to send letters and cards.  Just to let those people I know and love see how big my babies are and how we have all managed to make it through another crazy year.  Maybe I will get around to sending Ordinary cards when we go back to Ordinary time.   Just don’t expect them to hit your mailbox before Christmas.

Christmas Alliance posting alive and well.

Blogs I Know · My world

The Big Religion Speech

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I am going to break from my usual “I don’t blog about politics”  idea and I am going to talk for a moment about Mitt Romney and the Big Speech.   I really enjoyed the Anchoress’ take on it which you can read here:  On Mitt Romney’s speech.  I wanted to add just a little too what I have heard said so far. 

Mitt Romney is not just a rank and file Mormon.   This is not your typical goes on Sunday for Sacrament meeting, holds a calling at the local ward, does his home teaching and pays 10% of his gross income to the church.  Mitt Romney was not a pew warmer.  Mitt Romney was a Stake President.  In fact he was MY stake president when I was a member of the Cambridge first branch/ward back in the early 1990s.  For those of you unfamiliar with the structure of the LDS church each local congregation is led by a Bishop or Branch President, above them is a Stake President.  The stake President is roughly equal to a Catholic Bishop. 

While I can see the eagerness of the comparisons between Kennedy and Romney (religious minorities running for high office) I can’t believe that the media has ignored this crucial difference.   Kennedy was a rank and file Catholic; Romney has been part of the LDS hierarchy in a rather pronounced way.   To “advance” through the ranks in the LDS church you don’t need to go to a seminary or be ordained.  The Mormon church in fact prides itself in the fact that it is locally and regionally led by  “lay ministers” and that all male members hold the priesthoods of the LDS church.  Men are “called” from among the local worthy members by those above them in the hierarchy. 

On a sort of funny personal note if Romney faces Hillery  in the general election it will be the first time I have actually met both major party canidates (I met Hillary back in 1987 in Arkansas — and intensely disliked her).   I agree with the assessments that Romney is bland.  He is bland, jello-salad sort of bland.  I don’t get fired up about him at all, and I would have a hard time voting for him, but I would hold my nose and do it.

 I am not worried about Romney being Mormon.  I wouldn’t care if he was Buddhist, Islamic or believed in the Blue Martian Monkey Cult.  Intelligent people can and do balance the demands of faith and the secular world.  In fact most of us to it all day every day.  I don’t see any one’s faith as an issue to them holding public office a long as they understand that the USA is not a theocracy.   I would rather vote for someone who is honest and forthright about their faith or lack of faith than someone who dissembles or claims it to be only a personal matter.   Romney is at his best when he says:

“There are some for whom these commitments are not enough. They would prefer it if I would simply distance myself from my religion, say that it is more a tradition than my personal conviction, or disavow one or another of its precepts. That I will not do. I believe in my Mormon faith and I endeavor to live by it. My faith is the faith of my fathers – I will be true to them and to my beliefs. Some believe that such a confession of my faith will sink my candidacy. If they are right, so be it. But I think they underestimate the American people. Americans do not respect believers of convenience. ”

That sentiment is exactly what I would want to say if I was running for office and the topic of my faith came up.  I love my faith, I believe my faith, I live by it, it forms me.  If you don’t like that so be it, I am not stepping down from that.  And I really wish he had closed with that because just about everything else he said jumbled it up.  Romney seems to be saying that the most important issues to the faithful are issues where the faithful agree.   That is not the case and smacks of ignorance or worse indifference to the profound differences that exist in the faith community today.  Yes, we have similar values on many things, no there is not a substantial agreement on MANY important issues, especially social issues.

I suppose being Catholic I am more cautious about the separation of Church and State than many Christians.    It is a very powerful thing to think that as a Catholic the Constitution of the United States specifically disallows a State Church.  We will never be subjected to the horror of the Church of England or the Chinese Patriotic Catholic Association  where the state controls our faith and turns it to its own ends.  In America I can say I am a Roman Catholic, loyal to my faith, loyal to Rome and that in no way diminishes my patriotism and my patriotism doesn’t infringe on my faith.  That is what religious liberty means. 

That is why I oppose “prayer in school” or religious dogma being taught in any form–I basically don’t trust the government to get that right.   But at the same time there is a plurality of faith in our nation and  I don’t mind someone wishing me Happy Hanukkah or sending me a Solstice card, I don’t want to have to curb my Merry Christmas either.  Carve wisdom from all our faiths deep in the stone of our public buildings, light our buildings in any array of lights for whatever occasion the population of town or city desire,  celebrate it all, celebrate us all, but don’t drown me in the drivel of “we all are all on the same path.”  for we aren’t.  There are differences, some of the seriously profound and important.  By playing down the differences too much we reduce each faith’s individual character.   Mix enough colors together long enough and you loose them all.

By Romney talking overly much about the commonality of faith he looses the bit of color he has.   I would much rather have heard Romney wax eloquent about the fact that, although he believe his own version of Christianity with all his heart he can respect that others view God differently and he does somewhat pull this back together near the end of his comments where I agree with Mr Romney and Samuel Adams.  I don’t care what your faith is, I don’t care what your personal beliefs about God are I can pray with you.  I MAY look at your faith as a guide to how you might vote on issues I feel are important.  I certainly won’t vote against you because you were my stake President once upon a time,  even though our faith paths diverged many years ago. 

Advent · My world

Happy Saint Nicholas Day

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stnic.jpg

Click here for the 2008 Saint Nicholas Day Post.

Today is St Nicholas Day and we will have sort of a fun time.  Coloring, crafts and cookies. 

Santa and St Nicholas

I have always been sort of an odd duck among my friends in that I don’t really “do” Santa.   Even when the oldest was very little I had a bit of a problem with the idea of telling my child that someone in a red suit flew through the air and gave them presents when I know myself that it is actually not true.   That may sound somewhat fastidious of me or just crazy, but in reality I think we have struck a good balance between the secular celebration of Christmas (the orgy of consumerism) and Christmas (the nativity of Christ).  A good part of that has had to do with our approach to Santa Claus.

Over the years I have discussed our approach to the “Santa thing” many times with various friends and family both online and off.   Most the time I am a bit surprised at just how hostile people can be when you say that you “don’t do Santa”.   Part of this I understand, the most common thing is for  “dear friend or relative” to ask, “why?” and they don’t really appreciate the response.   In reality we never started doing Santa because use I just really couldn’t lie to the kids that way.   I have had a couple people argue with me endlessly that it isn’t lying to say that Santa is real.  I can appreciate the mental gymnastics that go into their arguments, but it just doesn’t fly.  To say a Jolly Old Elf dresses up in red and flies about the world  giving presents to good little boys and girls is not, by any stretch of the imagination objectively true.  

Now I have heard and I do understand all the “magic of the season”, “Harmless fun” , “Spirit of joy and love” , “Childhood memories” and “tradition” arguments.  I am by no means even suggesting that anyone else should do what we do.  What we do is what we do, I get that you might do something else, I am not saying you are dishonest or  hurting your children in any way, I get why you do what you do I just don’t quite agree.   I don’t quite get the “Your poor kids!” argument which seems to get tossed my way quite a bit– they enjoy the season very much and look forward to Christmas with all the pleasure of any young children.  They don’t miss any of the fun, joy, love, tradition and they have fantastic childhood memories.  We just don’t “do” Santa but that doesn’t mean that we toss out the Christmas tree and presents, have no cookies, no stories, forbid the mention or fantasy of Santa, that we don’t hang stockings or sing carols or sip eggnog. 

We read stories about Christmas, both the Nativity and the secular stories.  The children are in fact delighted with the idea of the secular Santa.   But it is along the lines of how they look at Peter Pan or The Wizard of Oz.  We do talk about St Nicholas on December sixth.  We discuss his life and why he is remembered this time of year, we make “CandyCane Cookies” (the Bishop’s/Shepherd’s staff), some years we go to our parish event or to the Grotto.   Some years ago at the Grotto one of the monks dressed as St Nicholas  gave the children candy-canes.  He didn’t ask what they want for Christmas, he didn’t promise them gifts, but instead he asked them to remember the Baby Jesus and to do their best to be good.   That I love.   I love seeing the Saints brought to life for our children and I love hearing them promise to remember their Savior and strive to be good.  It highlight the biggest intellectual problem I have with Santa Claus.  The “gimmies”.   

Once, a year or two before Ashley was born, I was at a shopping mall during Christmas.  Hectic and in its own way fun.  I have often referred to shopping malls as “Temples of Consumerism” not sure where the term originated, but it has stuck in my head.  I was looking over from the second level below to the “Santa’s Village” display.  Here was the God of consumerism seated in red velvety glory, his liveried attends assisting the supplicants as they approach the throne to tell him their requests.  Mothers grooming their tots to catch the perfect picture to accompany the “Christmas Letter” for friends and relatives and leading them up to sit on the big man’s lap.  Some of the children were happy and excited, coming forward with letters in hand detailing exactly what they wanted, others horribly afraid many were bored in the line, stressed out parents — all in all it was a really strange affair.  Completely commonplace and yet in some part of my brain completely alien.  It mad me question the whole “thing”.    It was beautiful in a way and yet off-putting as well.

There is no doubt that most adults have wonderful memories of their childhood Christmases.  Drifting to sleep Christmas eve hoping to hear the faint tinkle of sleigh bells in the distance, almost believing they do as they slip into dreams of Christmas morning  where they will receive the gifts they have been hoping for.   It is really an enchanting thing.  And yet there is always that “horrible” child in school who learns “the truth” and then tells all their peers.  I really shudder to hear how I have heard such children described.  One of the other very common things I hear is that my children must somehow be out to ruin the Christmas Joy for all their peers since they aren’t raised with the misconception that Santa is Real.   What a sad ignorance of the power of fantasy on children’s minds.  Children can delight in and believe in for a moment anything, any fantastical thing they can create in their imaginations.  All stories are for the moment real.  There are princesses with glass slippers, elves, fairies, teddy bears talk, and toys spring to motion when no one is looking in a child’s world.  Santa can be part of that, loved and enjoyed and treasured yet put away in a moment. 

Parent’s don’t need to say something is true for their children to enjoy to thought of it.  My children love the whole idea of Santa, but they don’t believe in Santa why way the believe in God or England.   There has been no crushing moment of “discovery”;  I have never had to utter the words “Thems that believe receive thems that don’t don’t”.   They slowly outgrow the Santa story the same way they leave behind the puzzle with ten pieces or nursery rhymes.  A loved part of happy childhood, but not the big part it is to some others.

Advent

Advent 2007: Hope

darceeLeave a comment

The first week of Advent is the week of Hope. 

The hope of life everlasting.  The hope of the world to come.  It is one of the central themes of Christian faith.  A fortitude that sees us through horrible darkness and leads us to the one true hope of Christ.  The light of the world.

My world

Feeling a hair overwhelmed

darceeLeave a comment

Coming back from the holiday weekend, a sick kiddo, lots of work, and early morning phone conference, shopping, cooking, argggggg!

 All too much it seems overwhelming today, or as our friends over at The Random Yak say… I am in the weeds.  Deep.  Can’t see the edge yet, might get there someday.