Here it comes. It's almost here. One more time. The little kidlets will be anxious insomniacs tonight as they listen for the Fat Guy's reindeer's hoofs on the roofs. The slightly older ones will wonder how someone so obese could fit down the chimney. The even older kids will want to know how he's going to get in their condo without a chimney to get stuck in or without getting arrested for breaking and entering.
Churches of the Roman Catholic and Anglican persuasions will be pulling out all stops for their classic midnight mass. Their protestant brethren will hold earlier services and all, or some of, the faithful will be gathering in to sing and hark with the Herald Angels and come with all ye faithful to adore once again the Babe of Bethlehem.
Other folks will be getting drunk, or using other, stronger substances to forget about their own emptiness of soul and heart which festers at the very core of the secular farce of Consumermas. Families will gather together for their own Christmas Eve traditions and all the It's All About Family-ites will chant and crow that they all have to be together on this special night and no outsiders will be welcome. Homeless folk will cope huddled and freezing in whichever vacant doorway they can find. Santa does not come for the homeless. Jesus does, having been homeless himself.
Figuring out a name for this most auspicious of holidays has become a major cause of worry for some people. As Christmas has become secular in tandem with the falling interest in things Christian there aren't a lot of people who want to really think of Christianity or of Jesus Christ, not even once a year. And no one wants to offend non-Christians, be they immigrant Muslims, or Jews or Buddhists who have been here for five generations or pagans or agnostics and atheists. No one wants to be offended and, worse, no one wants to offend. We are in Canada.
So you have a growing majority of folk wishing one another a bland and noncommittal "Seasons Greetings" or "Happy Holidays". They aren't Christmas cards, they are Holiday cards, Holiday parties, Holiday trees, Holiday dinners with turkey and all the trimmings. Happy holiday can mean anything, from a trip to Vegas (may it all stay there) to a nice week off, to (dare I mention the word) Merry Christmas.
I still prefer the word Christmas, being myself a Christian, though I try to understand and respect the squeamishness of those who don't believe as I do. Generally I wait for someone else to say....whatever, and I will simply respond "Thank you." Sometimes I will peep out a vague Merry Christmas, or if I'm afraid of getting whacked over the head with a Christmas stocking full of bricks I will whisper lamely "Have a nice holiday" and get out of there fast.
It isn't enough to simply say that for me it is Christmas, or Christ Mass. I grew up secular, no church and all Santa Claus, and when at the age of ten I had my first exposure to the Christian message of Christmas, somehow I found it more believable than the shallow and selfish crap about Santa Claus. It resonated inside and I was the least surprised when, five years later, I morphed into a teenage Jesus Freak. There is no doubt, still, in my mind, some forty-six years later that this is the real goods.
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