Devolving Christian Holidays
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| Extract of Saint Augustine by Philippe de Champaigne |
For those who aren't familiar with the roots of St. Patrick's Day, it is, as the name would suggest, a celebration of St. Patrick. St. Patrick was a British man who at 16 was kidnapped and enslaved by the Irish and eventually returned to Ireland as a missionary credited with bringing Christianity to Ireland. Now, however, St. Patrick's Day is a celebration of Irish culture as a whole, and we use it as an excuse to wear cheeky green shirts, pinch each other, drink beer, and throw green glitter all over classrooms.
St. Patrick's Day isn't the only Christian holiday that has received this widespread celebration and devolving of meaning, though. Christmas is the biggest example. Originally a celebration of the birth of Jesus Christ, it has now become something that around 85% of Americans celebrate, including around 81% of non-Christians. And here's the big question I want answers for: if you're not a Christian, but you claim to be celebrating a Christian holiday, what exactly are you celebrating?
Inherently, a holiday has to celebrate something. It can be something insignificant, like National Ice Cream Day (July 20), or something with deep-rooted cultural and religious meaning, like Hannukah, but regardless, the holiday is there for a reason and is recognizing something. I can't think of any logical way to have a holiday that doesn't celebrate something or has no purpose. Even if we were to all take a day off work for no explicit purpose, the celebration would revolve around the fact that we didn't have to go to work.
Another example is Easter, which is the Christian celebration of the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead. Nowadays, though, it has become a day to talk to grown men wearing bunny costumes and to run around eating chocolate and hunting for plastic eggs. This is not to condemn holiday traditions. I love Christmas cookies and egg hunts as much as the next person, and maybe even more. It is to ask, though, what these traditions and actions mean.
I would argue that holidays, particularly Christian holidays that are now widespread, have lost their meaning. While before we used them as days to commemorate real historical events that had deep Christian roots, we have now pulled them away from those roots to fit a commercial agenda and see how much we can profit from it. But if there's no meaning, is it truly a holiday? We've already established that holidays have to have a center point, something to celebrate. So if you take that meaning away, are we even celebrating at all?
But wait! What about Santa, you say! Aren't we celebrating Santa at Christmas, even if we don't believe in Jesus? What an interesting coincidence it is that all three of the examples I've brought up have another thing in common. They all have a carton mascot. Rather than Jesus, Santa (who was also a Catholic saint originally!) has become the face of Christmas, the Easter Bunny the face of Easter, and leprechauns the face of St. Patrick's Day.
When we strip away the original meaning of a holiday, we're left with a bunch of traditions and activities, and no purpose behind them for which to celebrate. So to fill in the gap, we create a character to bandaid over the hole left where Jesus was before. The only problem is that even if we have a character in the place of Jesus, we aren't celebrating the character. Yes, we are, you say! We love Santa! I love Santa too, and I think he's a great guy, but guess what? When you think about it, he's not what we're celebrating. He just tags along for the ride. Even if you're an atheist, you don't go tell your kids "Oh, yeah, all the fun things we did this month are to celebrate Santa and his annual sleigh ride around the globe!" Why? Because when your kid turns 12, and you have to tell them Santa isn't real, what happens then? The logic falls apart because you can't celebrate something that you don't believe is real. Even if Santa is still accompanying Christmas, he can't be the cause of celebration, because you don't believe he exists for the majority of your lifetime. The same goes for the Easter Bunny and leprechauns, and by that logic, you can't celebrate any Christian holiday unless you believe in Christ, because it's pretty hard to celebrate something you don't believe exists.
So if you're not celebrating the original meaning of the holiday, and you're not celebrating the character we replaced Jesus with, then what are you celebrating? Are you celebrating anything? I'll give you another example, this time not religious. Take the 4th of July. Patriotism! Fireworks! Beer! But if you don't believe that America is the land of the free, if you feel like America is the realm of oppressors and oppressed, like the Boston Tea Party was the end of the world, then you're going to have a hard time celebrating. You might drink some booze, but you certainly won't celebrate.
That's the catch. There's a difference between celebrating a holiday and participating in the activities surrounding it. You can participate in Christmas activities and traditions without celebrating Christmas. The same goes for Easter, St. Patrick's Day, and the 4th of July. The problem isn't that people want to bake Christmas cookies or pinch each other. The problem is that people want to say they're celebrating a holiday when they are objectively not. And it's okay to not celebrate. It's okay to just do the activities. Do I wish everyone would come to Christ and get to celebrate? Of course. But that's simply not going to happen, and that's okay.
I don't have a problem with people wanting to be included and participate in traditions. I just want people to understand and be okay with what they're celebrating, and what they're not celebrating. Even I'm looking forward to Easter baskets, just as much as I dislike getting pinched.
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