WHEN I WAS YOUNG, the French-Canadian Nuns who taught us catechism came over from the town where their convent was to watch us brats at the early morning mass on Christmas. Then we'd have to all troop downstairs to the church hall, a dark and dismal basement room where the priest would come in and we'd be told, beforehand to sing one of the universally known Christmas songs to him and he'd be given a token present, supposedly from all us brats - though we didn't know anything about it though I think I remember having given a dime or so towards it. If one of my older siblings had a reliable memory for that kind of thing, I'd ask what they remember. But, there you go.
In my family it might have meant putting off the hour when we got to open our presents, though we knew our older sisters would insist on singing for the late morning mass and we couldn't open ours until they came back, near or even early after noon time. I remember feeling some contempt for the kids whose family tradition permitted opening presents before mass or even on Christmas eve. "Babies" I thought, relishing the kind of feeling of moral superiority which is likely alloyed with a touch of envy. Probably something like what Republican-fascists think whenever they hear of some poor or destitute person receiving meager aid. But I outgrew that fairly young.
I remember one year the Nuns told us to sing "We Wish You A Merry Christmas" but they'd decided that a "Merry Christmas" was insufficiently religious and they told us to, instead, sing "A Joyous Christmas." As French was most of their mother tongues, and most of them came from very pious Catholic families, I figured it gave a little window into the difference between their and Anglo culture. I didn't know that French Canadians saved up the merriment for Le Jour de L'An, on January 1st, Christmas day being a Holy Day.
Some of that experience stuck with me because now, the world of difference all those decades aside, I still feel reluctant to say "Merry Christmas" because it seems too frivolous for what is a religious, a Christian holiday. Too English to my ears, to tell you the truth. I won't go into the diatribe against FOX Lies and Trump at this point but I'm sure you can guess what I mean and what I'd have to say about that.
My family, by almost unanimous consent, has done away with Christmas presents for adults - enjoying the entire Christmas season, including Advent, all the more for that. We still decorate a bit, still make Christmas cookies, and some year I'll make my famous fruit cake again - Haven't made it since our father died thirty-one years ago, I'd probably die of shock at the price of the dried fruits, now. And we'll have our traditional for the day and have our family party on the January 1st. I'm spending the day alone with my old cat and reading the appropriate Gospel readings and which-ever psalms and Epistle readings are for the day and that's as much merriment as I care to have. I'm even foregoing writing a huge post on the Incarnation and the universal and cosmic theological assertions on that from such deep theologians as Gregory of Nyssa.
So, have a faith filled, or even a joyous or, if you feel up to it, a merry Christmas. I'm having one.
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