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I don’t like Christmas, but I still enjoy it

My wife said I should write this post. I have my doubts. It is sure to offend.

I don’t like Christmas. It’s not just the commercialization, the artificial cheeriness, the tinkly upbeat and lethargic downbeat tunes, the destruction of pine trees or their synthetic replacements, and the silliness of telling children that elves make their toys and a mythological Santa Claus delivers them. Those would all be good reasons to have doubts.

Nor do I mind the finer things associated with the holiday. Dinner with family, listening to Handel’s Messiah as well as Amahl and the Night Visitors, the many beautiful paintings of the Nativity, the inspiration to do good, and the celebration of human fellowship. These are all welcome, any day of the year.

What I object to is the specifically Christian aspect of Christmas. The story itself is incredible. A virgin gave birth to the son of God? That son of God was destined to die for human sins on the cross? He will return some day as the Messiah to initiate a last judgment? I suppose it is logical that people who believe such things might also invent something as unbelievable as Santa Claus and his elves, but that doesn’t make it more appealing.

You may write all this off to my being Jewish, or if you like to my being a skeptic. To me, the Messiah is as fantastical as Santa Claus. Consider what we know:

1. Our earth is just one of millions of planets throughout the universe. It is unlikely that its living inhabitants are unique. A few billion years and millions of planets will have generated the physical and chemical conditions for life elsewhere, as they did here.
2. There is no good reason for God to have chosen this particular planet to impregnate the virgin with his son. I know he can do whatever he likes, but is He just capricious? Or does He do this on every planet? Or does our God do it here and other gods do what they want on other planets?

There is a good reason why the Pope burned Giordano Bruno at the stake in Campo de’ Fiori in 1600 for preaching a multiplicity of worlds. That fact is incompatible with traditional Christian beliefs. I can imagine the hostility and violence with which our first visitors from outer space will be greeted. I can only hope they are as wise and powerful as those in “The Day the Earth Stood Still.” The 1951 version of course–one of the first films I remember.

Still, I do enjoy Christmas. It has many virtues not found in shopping malls and churches: on the day itself, less traffic, fewer emails, more quiet, an opportunity for contemplation, the invitation to be charitable, a feeling of good will towards others, and the warmth of family and friends. Whatever God or gods there may be, they have a lot of planets to play with. If there is to be any good in the world, humans will have to make it happen.