I’m not a Christian and I don’t care about the birth of Jesus as the “reason for the season”. But I heartily agree that it’s dismaying to see the deeper meaning of Christmas lost under a flood of greed, selfishness, and mindless consumerism. I think it would be great if all of the focus on spending/buying/selling for Christmas would fizzle out, and people would turn it into what it should be, a day with a much smaller, more intimate focus on friends, family and service (and religion if you so desire). I would not celebrate it as a religious holiday, just as I don’t observe Yom Kippur or Easter or Ramadan or whatever. But I’d have a heck of a lot more appreciation for  what it means.

But then we have to hear all the right-wingers getting all hot & bothered about the “War On Christmas!” every year, twisting themselves into knots to try and blame the bastardization of Christmas somehow on progressives and secularists. What’s really to blame? The good old Free Market – the profit motive – our beloved Capitalism. Folks can make a lot of $$$ off of a holiday based around gift-giving, and they are very skilled at doing so. To heck with service and brotherhood and community — it’s Black Friday!!! Buy Buy Buy!

I guess the point I’m trying to make is that things are rarely as black-and-white as folks like Beck and Bill O’Reilly seem to want to always make them out to be. We worship the free market, but when the free market mucks up our religious observances with a lot of crass commerce, somehow we have to blame it on our ideological foes. Why can’t we just admit that life is complex & confusing & ambiguous, and that most folks are just trying to get through the day with their integrity intact?