merry happy season's holiday's greetings

i really enjoyed reading everyone's lists of things/people that theyre thankful for, and i enjoyed sharing mine as well. we had a quiet cozy thanksgiving holiday in central florida with my mom. seemed like we drove more than we visited, but that's ok too. hope everybody had a blessed holiday!

i hate that my mom lives so far away (she and my dad moved to florida and built a house in one of those retirement communities down there after he retired), but as many of you probably figured, the upside (besides spending time with my mother) is that i got to drive a bunch! 13 1/2 hours each way to be exact. one of my favorite things to do on a road trip like that, besides listen to music, is to think. i know you're saying to yourself, "dean, i've read that stuff you write... how much thinking do you think we think you do??" so it comes easier for some than others... sue me (<--thinly disguised attempt to direct additional page views to my blog). anyway, on the drive home saturday, i was thinking about something that started to occur to me while watching the news thursday evening. actually, it really started a year or 2 ago when AFA got all upset about certain retail establishments deciding it would be the right thing to do to replace the traditional greeting of "merry Christmas!" with something less "offensive" like "happy holidays!" or "season's greetings!" although, i used to work in retail management, and i can tell you, the closer you get to Christmas day, the less likely that exclamation point is to be at the end of whatever you're greeting your customers with. you know, for years now, the networks have been using "happy holidays" and "season's greetings" in their graphic whenever they break away from football games for commercials, but i guess maybe don wildmon doesnt watch a whole lotta football since he didnt get bent out of shape about it until the retailers hopped on board the PC train.

so, i was all over this... i signed all of don's online petitions, and i was just as righteously indignant as the next guy... until a few days ago. actually, i'm still indignant, but i've had a change in perspective. see, thursday night on the news, they had a reporter out at some shopping center in orlando, and there were these people, at 6:00 p.m. on thursday, lined up around the building waiting for the store (best buy) to open friday morning. they had chairs, sleeping bags, blankets, pillows and tents. i laughed to myself and shook my head. on friday's news, they showed these folks, who were all smiles and nicey-nice the night before while being interviewed on camera, trampling each other and any poor store clerk who happened to be in the way, trying to get to all of best buy's best buys. and we've all no doubt heard the stories of the crazy goings-on in recent years at our very own wal mart... grown men and women physically fighting over the season's must-have items, which are ALWAYS in notoriously short (or as the retailers like to call it, "limited") supply. all in the name of shopping... for gifts... for Christmas... for CHRISTmas. for me, "black friday" has taken on a whole different connotation than it does for the retailers who count on that day to get them out of the red for the year. its a dark day indeed, the way people act toward each other in the name of good cheer and capitalism.

back in my retail days, i was already beginning to get a little jaded and disillusioned by the whole process. we used to have a sales cycle that went something like this at summer's end... back-to-school, halloween, a short-time-frame-with-a-small-display-area-of-thanksgiving-stuff, then Christmas. by time i got out of the business, it was back-to-school, a very-short -time-frame-with-a-relatively-small-display-area-of-halloween-stuff, then Christmas... for a really, really long time... a long enough time that it would actually make you have thoughts like "i can't wait until this is over"... and i hated feeling that way. i've loved Christmas forever. and even though as a kid i was into the gifts, my parents had a really good perspective, and it never got out of hand... and i never lost sight of the fact that Christmas was all about Jesus (i was even joseph in the 1st grade Christmas play!) one year, back in the early 80's, one of the stores in my town had the unmitigated audacity (<-- take THAT, wegley!) to write "merry X-mas" in fake snow in their front window. a bunch of folks got upset, and the error was quickly corrected. little did anyone know that the "X" was to be the least of anyone's worries 20-something years later.

anyway, back to my thinking-and-driving... the more i ran the images from those thursday and friday newscasts through my head, the more it occurred to me that it's better that we don't associate Jesus with this obscenity we've turned Christmas into. i'm not ignorant regarding the traditions surrounding Christmas, and i'm aware that many of them have their origins in paganism. centuries ago, early believers set about to Christianize the already existing pagan festivals and celebrations, though many who have written on the subject believe that the tradition of gift-giving is unique to the Christian celebration of Christmas, and has its roots in the account of the magi bringing gifts to the Christ child. feel free to prove me wrong on that one, but my point is, gift-giving with the right motivation is one of the most heart-felt ways that i can think of to celebrate the holiday. however, crass commercialism has all but buried that notion. i just can't believe that God would look down on what we've turned Christmas into and be pleased to have His Son's name in any way associated with it. i've come to the conclusion that it's preferable, at least in the retail world, to go ahead and let them disassociate themselves as far as they possibly want and can from using my Savior's title to sell their goods. quite frankly, Christmas commercialism seems to have come full circle and more resembles a pagan festival than a celebration of the birth of our King. why pressure the retailers to pay lip service to Jesus being the reason for the season, when they honestly couldnt care less about Him in the first place?

for the record, i love Jesus, i'm a Christmas fanatic, and i get all wrapped up in the "Christmas spirit"... peace, goodwill toward men! and i'm able to maintain that perspective by staying as far away from the mall as i can between thanksgiving and Christmas eve. i keep the gifts simple yet meaningful, and my own gift expectations low. in fact, if someone wanted to give me a gift that would really make my (Christmas) day, they could send a donation to any number of Christian charities in my name. better yet, they could pledge to help support my wonderful friends dave and tina bostian as they prepare to move with their five children to be career missionaries in vitoria da conquista, brazil next year.

there's so many ways we as Christians can and do celebrate the season besides spending the equivalent of the GDP of a developing nation on the latest toys and gadgets. also for the record, i'm a red-blooded american capitalist... i just dont see that embarking on yearly bigger-is-better, shop-til-you-drop, buy-now-pay-later greed fests in the name of the Savior is a very God-honoring thing to do. so they can keep their "season's greetings" and "happy holidays" (really, would you ever dare to sound so silly as to actually say "season's greetings!" to someone??) i think Jesus will do just fine without any help from wal mart, target or circuit city. so i guess this means i'm on don wildmon's naughty list this year....