The LeftWingCapitalist household is decorated for Christmas. Most of the festive flourishes are due to the creative efforts of Mrs. LWC, of course, with assistance from Yours Truly, as appropriate.
A Christmas tree, brightly lit, fills the front room window. Its branches bend under the strain of supporting many ornaments; each comes with a story. Illuminated candles -- electric, of course -- brighten certain otherwise dim corners to reveal more Christmas decorations. There is Christmas music -- for the next few days, all of our music will be Christmas music.
The weather -- well, this is Southern California -- is what we call "seasonal." Which means it is nothing like what our friends in much of the rest of the country are experiencing with sub-freezing mercury readings day after day. But at least the temperatures here are staying below 75F, with one or two possible exceptions in this week's forecast.
It's all pretty traditional.
We say lots of "Merry Christmas"-es to people. And a few "Happy Hanukkah"s to our Jewish friends. And some "Happy Holidays" greetings, too. More tradition. People do not have to be Jewish or Christian to be a part of The Holidays. And so to those who are of other backgrounds -- be it Muslim, Buddhist, Sikh, pagan (an occasional one, here and there; give them credit for yule), atheist, agnostic, Hindu, and all the others -- I am pleased to say "Have a Happy Holidays!" If it works for them, it works for me.
When did the "Merry Christmas!" greeting first come into general use? It surprised me to learn that "Merry Christmas!" is a relatively modern innovation. Like many other Christmas traditions, the greeting emerged into the public mind in the early 1800s. It gradually caught on in general use as a result of popular literature of the time such as Charles Dickens' A Christmas Carol.
Christmastime celebrations in colonial and early America were haphazard. This is not to say that they were insincere, but rather that sometimes, in some places, they happened, and at other times and in other places they did not. The Pilgrims, those paragons of piety whose Thanksgiving we recently celebrated here in the United States, were not known to celebrate a Christmas holiday, or even to give the day any special recognition. The Puritans of Olde and New Englands -- of which society the Pilgrims were a very small part -- actually went so far as to forbid Christmas celebrations throughout their lands, and insisted on occupying the day with a good day's worth of labor!
Is it any wonder, then, that it is almost impossible to conjure up an image of a smiling Puritan? Can anybody even find a Puritan in our midst these days? I think not.
We wish everyone Merry Christmas! Happy Hanukkah! Happy Holidays! Happy New Year! All are welcome to choose any combination, even all of them together.
