It's Christmas

Apparently last evening's Channel 2 piece of the Nashville Christmas Tree got S-Town Mike worked up. Brittney at NiT had to respond and so must I.

I saw the broadcast. I don't remember the blessing. I do remember Bob Mueller saying that the mayor's office didn't care what 'the tree' was called. And then Bob Mueller said they'd (Channel 2) be calling it a Christmas tree. I understood it to be an attempt at humor in light of the current brouhaha across the nation.

Brittney called it a 'paper thin' piece. Please, it's not like the station hasn't broadcast 'paper thin' pieces before. It's not all hard hitting investigative journalism all the time at any of the stations or papers. But sometimes the fluff is a bit obvious, I'll grant.

We call it a Christmas tree. We understand it's pagan roots and I don't believe it keeps us some celebrating the birth of Jesus (and yes we know we can't nail down the real date). But I appreciate recognition of his birth, death and resurrection. I don't expect any of us to get that done perfectly.

I was at Target the other morning to buy a new smoke detector for my MIL. It was oddly silent as I entered the front and it took me a moment to realize why it seemed wrong. And then it came to me--there was no Salvation Army bell ringer out front. And then my daughter and I scanned the place, which was decorated to the nines, and we could only find one instance of the word Christmas and it was on a product. In fact while the decorations were obviously seasonal, Christmas was nowhere and even the word holiday was scarce.

I don't want our businesses and governments to be the definers and protectors of my religious holy days. But I do want the freedom to celebrate them without being constrained by the government and business. I do feel that between our bending over backwards to accommodate diversity in this nation and the commercialization of the season we've lost our focus on what Christmas is supposed to celebrate. Blame it on Macy's, I suppose. Maybe it started with that famous "Yes, Virginia" letter. I don't' know. But I do grieve when people are constrained from wishing each other, with the best of intentions, "Merry Christmas". When folks are more willing to embrace a fat stalker in ermine rather than a loving God's attempt to prove he understands us and loves us there is something majorly wrong.