By William C. Shelton

 (The opinions and views expressed in the commentaries of The Somerville Times belong solely to the authors of those commentaries and  do not reflect the views or opinions of The Somerville Times, its staff or publishers)

*
It’s coming on Christmas,
They’re cutting down trees,
Putting up reindeer,
Singing songs of joy and peace.
Oh I wish I had a river
I could skate away on.
*
– Joni Mitchell

A few days before my eighth Christmas, I confronted my mother with my growing suspicion that Santa Claus was a hoax. To her credit, she was truthful and forthright in her response.

She admonished me not to share this discovery with other kids, so I agreed that I wouldn’t. But I didn’t feel like I was now an insider, on the smug side of an adult secret. I felt confused. And my mother was unable to explain why adults systematically deceive their kids.

My inability to fully suspend disbelief in how we celebrate Christmas continues to this day. I am sincerely moved by the delight that I see people, young and old, take in Christmas. I’m sobered by the stress that the season seems to bring for many of those same people. And I still don’t understand why so many things are false about the way that we celebrate the birth of the one who said, “You shall know the truth, and the truth shall set you free.”

Start with the date. No living human knows when Jesus was born, but the gospels make clear that it was not in late December. In Judea, shepherds did not “watch their flocks by night” at that time of year. There was nothing for their sheep to graze on, and they had the good sense to get out of the cold, rain, and snow.

Nor did the Roman Empire conduct censuses in winter. They wouldn’t have succeeded, since the weather could be bitter, fodder was expensive, and the roads could become impassable.

Jesus was probably born in late September or early October. He was six months younger than John the Baptist, and from Luke’s gospel, we can surmise that John was born in late March.

So if we want to pick a day to remember Jesus’ birth, and no one knows when it really was, what’s wrong with December 25^th?

Nothing, I suppose. But the way that date was selected seems to me to presage so many false elements about our celebrations of Christmas that have nothing to do with, and distract from, what Jesus lived and died for.

During the Church’s first three centuries, being a Christian could be risky. Sporadic persecutions eventually became systematic in the late Third Century, when emperors declared that Rome’s crises were the result of pissed-off gods, and Christians declined to sacrifice to them.

Moreover, for the first couple centuries, Christianity was a form of Judaism. One couldn’t be a Christian without also being a Jew.

Then, Christianity became respectable. It spread first to working people, and then to aristocratic women. The Emperor Constantine’s mother was one of them. He credited the Christian god with his military victory. He legalized religion and gave lavish gifts of land and money to the Church.

Being a Christian went from being risky to being advantageous. The upwardly mobile, opportunistic, and politically ambitious began joining the Church. This became a stampede when Christianity became the state religion in 380. The new “converts” brought with them practices that had nothing to do with Jesus.

Sometime in the Fourth Century, the Roman Church established December 25th as the feast of Jesus’ birth. Early Christians had been suspect of such celebrations. The theologian Origen of Alexandria had written in 245 that in the Bible, only evildoers like Pharaoh and Herod celebrated their birthdays. Writing in 303, the Christian apologist Amobius ridiculed the pagan celebration of gods’ birthdays.

Pagan it was. The selection of December 25^th coincided with a series of pagan celebrations surrounding the Winter solstice. The practice of gift giving came directly from Saturnalia, the festival honoring the Roman god Saturn.

Over the following millennium, as the Church rolled over the peoples of Europe, it placated them by adopting other pagan elements that are now inseparable from our celebration of Christmas—the tree, Yule log, greenery, lights.

I have nothing against pagan celebrations. As someone prone to the winter blues, I love celebrating the return of the light on Winter Solstice.

But I’m saddened that, rather than savoring peace, solace, and contemplation, we so often feel stressed by an urgency to get our shopping done, or by a sense of inadequacy if we have scant funds with which to shop.

Over my lifetime, consumption has gone from representing a third of our economy to 70%. I can’t help but speculate as to whether this has something to do with the onset of Christmas season having crept from mid December to mid November over the same period.

I’m saddened that there is only one season in which we are enjoined to be good to each other. By “good” I mean kind and caring rather than effective and efficient. Too often we confuse the two meanings of the word.

I don’t wish to diminish anyone’s Christmas joy. In fact, I believe that Joy is what it should be about.

So here is my Christmas wish for you:

May you know Love;

May you always have a home and enough to eat;

May you have productive work that is meaningful to you;

May you have a rich and abiding understanding of your own worth, independent of what you possess;

May you have the courage to acknowledge your wrongs and the wisdom to forgive yourself;

May you know Grace and be gracious unto others;

May you be joyful.