Part #1 The Real Treasures of Christmas By: Billy Rojas Multitudes of Christians -an many non-Christians- have favorite carols of the holiday season that are cherished from year to year like golden coins locked away in a secret corner of their home. However, for most people, while there always are exceptions, their choices of favorite carols are effectively made for them by the limited menu of Christmas songs promoted annually by the entertainment media. They are parts of a cultural canon in which anything remotely like deep Christian faith simply cannot rise to the surface; it would be drowned out, overwhelmed by everything else. These "December songs" heard on radio shows, or presented to crowds in public shopping venues like large shopping malls, or heard as part of television programs, or sometimes sung at office parties or during social gatherings among friends, while many certainly are "good" in an objective sense, have nonetheless all been sanitized, scrubbed clean of any references to the 'hard truths' taught by Christian faith. These truths are deliberately excluded from observances of the birth of Jesus. To be certain there are plenty of references to the nativity of the infant Jesus, to Wise Men -Magi- from the East, to angels and shepherds and Mary and Joseph, but the truths in question are about far more than a 'magical birth,' or about colorful symbols of the season, or about universal platitudes promoting "peace on Earth" or good will among people. These are hardly bad things but the point is that the sentiments involved have become cliches and, these days, exist in sanitized form and not much else. What is also true is that in many carols, whatever their origin, sound like they were created by Hollywood composers, polished, ready for movie sound tracks, to be played by studio orchestras that double as ensembles to provide music to sell cars, smart phones, or investment plans. Not that these are bad things, either; they are not. But it is to note that commercialization allows some expressions and not others, including expression of values that are antithetical to the profit motive, antithetical to quest for status, or antithetical to values that minimize the worth of our cultural heritage. Precisely because many contemporary values are non-Christian, or even anti-Christian, Christmas itself has been compromised away in innumerable ways, and often by people who never think of their actual values this way, as derived from the realm of the financial market, from every-man-for-himself self-centeredness, aka, libertarianism, or from a moral relativism that denies that there are any worthwhile values outside of economic self-interest. These realities are rationalized to nothingness by a business system that relegates culture -our values, morality, philosophies, preferences in entertainment, etc. - to near insignificance. We live in an Adam Smith world where Smith never wrote his Theory of Moral Sentiments to warn people that without religion-derived morality their lives inevitably are ruled by base passions, by egos run amuck, or by complete absence of any kind of education to lasting values. All of this and abysmal disinterest in modern-day creativity of the highest order, hence masterpieces of art -or song, or drama- that, if they are noticed at all, are regarded as diversions which we can take or leave and who cares one way or the other? Which is to say that we would all be better off, immeasurably better off, if we take a clinical look at the Christmas we do not have because American popular culture does not allow us to see what is there to be seen. Now is the time to explore a realm where everything comes together, ideas and values and morals and aesthetics, how we decide what is beautiful and what is not, namely, the world of Christmas carols. None of this is intended to bring back the ghost of Christmas past, the era of Oliver Cromwell and the Puritans who followed after him in 17th century America when the holiday was effectively outlawed in Massachusetts and other parts of New England. Our Founding Fathers were part of a generation which still had memories of Puritan laws and customs that snuffed out celebration of Christmas in areas where a dour form of religion stood in opposition to such 'heathen' practices as singing songs during the time of year when Christ's birth should be observed with prayers and devotions and solemn remembrances. The whole idea of Christmas merriment was anathema to the Puritans. But we don't want that kind of Christmas; we regard any such thing as beyond comprehension. Not that all people in America of that era regarded Puritan views favorably. The Dutch did not, nor did the Germans, the Cavaliers of the upper South, the Anglicans wherever they might be, nor the French or the Swedes. But no-one could overlook the Puritans; a major part of the economy in the brand new United States was the property of New England Calvinists. Antagonizing the Puritans did not make logical sense. Hence, decades after anti-Christmas laws were repealed in Massachusetts and elsewhere, deference was still paid to Puritan sensibilities even in the cities like New York. Clement Moore, author of "A visit from St. Nicholas," aka, "Twas the night before Christmas," grew up at that time and knew it all too well. And he was at least somewhat sympathetic to the Puritans. One couplet from the poem, about "clatter" in the middle of the night, is an oblique reference to a common practice of the time, of rowdy boys who would march through the city streets and cause disturbances in order to extract gifts of food or drink from local home owners. The poem presupposed familiarity with this questionable custom that Clement Moore clearly did not approve. This is to refer to America in the 1820s; Moore wrote his verses in 1823. Christmas caroling was still not a universally accepted custom, nor was much else about the holiday which, as many Protestants saw it, reflected so much Catholic superstition anyway. As well, many Americans of the time were smokers; tobacco fortunes financed the economy of the era (several Founding Fathers owned large tobacco plantations, including Washington, Jefferson, and Madison) and any new popularity for a Christmas holiday would need to address pro-smoking values of the day. Hence another couplet that seldom meets approval today, about Santa and his tobacco pastime:
The stump of a pipe he held tight in his teeth And the smoke, it encircled his head like a wreath... The main Winter holiday in early 19th century America was New Year's Day. Still, Clement Moore was drawn to the idea of making Christmas the better choice for a family celebration and followed his friend Washington Irving in promoting the concept. But, as the Wikipedia article on the subject points out, Moore hit upon the idea of romanticizing Christmas Eve as the best way to advance Christmas itself since that way Protestants would not need to feel any sense of compromise with Catholics. But in 1832 there still was no reference to singing carols even though, to be sure, people in various places were doing exactly that even if the custom was not universally accepted. Keep in mind that another now universal custom, Christmas trees, were not, for the most part, introduced into seasonal traditions until the 1840s. The holiday was still "emerging" in the new nation. A fascinating article about the history of Christmas from Slate magazine for November 30, 2011, provides still more details about how it was that the "American way of Christmas" finally broke into the open to become the festive and largely secular holiday it now is. This is Nathan Heller's essay, "Christmas Carols -Why do we keep singing them?" At the same time that Clement Moore was writing his poem the very first stages of a revival of carol singing had started in Britain. Hence Davies Gilbert's 1822 volume of rediscovered Christmas carols, followed a few years later by another Christmas songbook, by William Sandys, which popularized a number of carols that have been with us ever since, including “The First Nowell, the Angel did say," and "Hark the Herald Angels Sing." Modern Christmas was evolving into the holiday we know and love. What made an enormous difference was the 1843 publication of Charles Dickens' A Christmas Carol which told the story of Scrooge, Tiny Tim, and the Ghost of Christmas Past -in contrast to the merry and fun-filled Christmases of an idealized British past. In this telling Scrooge is a stand-in for the Puritans, whom, clearly, need to go. The Dickens' classic is with us still, of course, year by year reinforcing its powerful messege that Christmas should be a time of good cheer, of sharing, of celebration, and other noble things including religious remembrances, but as a holiday with "no edge." This is the problem. Not that Christmas should be gray and solemn but that it should make life's realities part of the picture -as do a number of now-forgotten Christmas carols. It isn't just seasonal songs. If you take the time to study the history of Christmas observances in American you will learn that throughout the 19th century, even as late as the 1950s, there were plenty of reminders that some people are evil and need to be dealt with as such, that each of us has a "dark side" that should never be overlooked, that children can be horrible little creatures far from the contemporary view based on the "cult of the child" that sees no evil in youth, especially in one's own offspring. As for faith, the subject of sin was never far from the surface, and the themes of suffering, tragedy, and sometimes loss, concepts that "don't make the cut" as far as commercial retailers are concerned. Any kind of reality-based Christmas has pretty much vanished. It is time to bring it back. Life is not all candy canes, marshmallows, well behaved children with no flaws, and enactment of every warm and fuzzy sentiment you can think of. Yes, we can make the most of the holiday season; we should do so for everyone's sake, this is a large part of what Christmas is all about. But we need to work at it, and sometimes sacrifices are necessary to make things happen. And the best exemplar of what Christmas is all about is Jesus, whose life was filled with suffering as well as hope, and with sacrifices of many kinds. As Nathan Heller put it, in our time "an important feature of Christmas carols is that they are only nominally about Christmas. Listeners faced with the full canon might distinguish between sacred songs (those that make some mention of Christ's birth) and secular ones (Santa Claus, snowmen, mistletoe, "cheer" and all manner of wassailing), but this is like insisting on a basic difference between hot cross buns and Danishes. Both are iced and sweet..." and if you have one you pretty much have the other. Such religion as there is, generally focuses on lowest common denominator fare, "what everyone knows," a moral universe for kids but sold to grown ups as if baby ethics is all that anyone needs to worry about, and a lot of common symbolism -apparently on the view that every spiritual issue has long been resolved, there are no questions anyone needs to ask, there is no depth to religion anyway, and what we have in common is all that matters since all religion reduces to Civil Religion. Our genuine differences are discredited in the process, there is no such thing as diversity except insofar as every people is supposedly just like all other peoples as soon as you scratch the surface. You can have your own colorful costumes, you can eat ethnic foods that others have no appetite for, you can convene ceremonies where the language of choice isn't English, but otherwise we are sold a bill of goods to the effect that everyone is the same. If you disagree, as many Evangelicals and Greek Orthodox and traditional Catholics do, as revivalist Lutherans and faithful Baptists also do, you are un-American and need to be re-educated. Hence the "demotion" of carols that don't meet the needs of the secular paradigm for Christmas as a holiday that should be acceptable to everyone -incredibly, including Muslims, who outright reject the idea of Christmas as little more than a form of idolatry. And not just Muslims. One of the great weaknesses of the Baha'i Faith, for instance, is that it regards Christmas as obsolete and something that should be phased out. Which is to hopelessly misunderstand the meaning of the holiday and its place in American culture, certainly since some point in the mid 19th century. You may as well denigrate weddings, birthday parties, and graduation ceremonies. These observances are part of who we are as Americans. Ironically, in Buddhist countries, and now even in Hindu India, Christmas is taking on a life of its own even if the populations involved do not share Christian beliefs at large. But Christmas trees are a national obsession in Buddhist / Shinto Japan, and many people in India can see all too well the possibilities in Christmas customs to supplement their own holiday seasons like Diwali. Hence the rise of Hindu interpretations of Christmas now celebrated on the Internet with good natured animations in which Santa wears a turban, Rudolph has become a unicorn, and angels sure look a lot like Hindu Dhakini maidens. Christmas is about sharing and this can mean sharing our culture with others, win / win, nobody loses, and the world becomes a little better in the process. But it would mean the most if Buddhists and Hindus and others understood that Christians really believe the essentials of their faith, are committed to the truths of their religion, and take pride in their heritage. Until about 1960 America's Jews understood the principle involved very well, indeed. Hence the rise of Chanukkah as a sort of "Jewish Christmas," an insignificant holiday elevated into a major new tradition featuring gift giving, exotic seasonal decorations, and family reunions above and beyond those demanded by the Orthodox calendar. That is, Christian Americans insisted that Jews should have their own version of Christmas so that they would not feel "left out" during this special time of year experienced by all other Americans. The messege was one of inclusion, acceptance, and brotherhood. Also seldom recognized is the fact that Christmas carols are a gateway into history. Nathan Heller also recognized this quality of the songs we sing at Christmastide: "Carols not only to a time before Shakespeare but before Beowulf -and then to many eras in between. When people speak about "Christmas spirit," they mean a form of reassurance virtually expunged from modern life: the comfort of continuity, the pleasure of return, the knowledge that not everything we have will one day disappear. Christmas carols are our mainstream window to the past and as a consequence, the closest thing we have to a guarantee of our own era's future." They may also be a portal to other cultures even if not all Christmas songs have this quality. But knowledge is now widespread that many of our cherished Christmas customs have nothing to do with Jesus and a lot to do with the Roman Saturnalia, with Pagan Anglo-Saxons and their Yule celebrations, or with Mithraic religion that originated in classical era Persia; the birthday of Mithras, deity of contracts and justice, who bequeathed the custom of shaking hands to posterity, was celebrated -a century before Christ- on December 25. There also are such traditions as the German fixation with decorating little trees for the season, with creches that were popular in medieval Italy, with a flying man in a red suit as originally conceived in Scandinavia and the Low Countries, with good St. Nicholas of Asia Minor (now Turkiye), and with much else that connects us to the peoples of most of the nations of Europe and, in cases, some of the countries of Latin America. In time, many Americans speculate, there will be connections to the other continents even though what has been done so far has been unconvincing. Some Christmas songs take us into the American past, which has value of its own. Jingle Bells, for instance, dates to 1857. Originally it was intended to celebrate Thanksgiving, but before the 19th century ended the only seasonal songs were devoted to Christmas and the music about a sleigh and snow covered byways fit well enough with those themes to became a December perennial. In 1862 a Welsh melody from maybe 1550 AD became the basis for "Deck the Halls," possibly referring to nostalgia for life before the Civil War. Although a few additional songs or carols were composed during the balance of the 19th century and the first years of the 20th, it wasn't until the 1930s that the idea of creating new Christmas music on a regular basis "took off." Hence Winter Wonderland and _Santa Claus Is Coming to Town_ (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Santa_Claus_Is_Coming_to_Town) , both from 1934, and I've Got My Love to Keep Me Warm, in 1937, and several others from that era. Baby, It's Cold Outside, first appeared in 1944 and Let it Snow in 1945. By the 1950s there was a virtual industry in writing new Christmas songs every year. The first in the 1950s category was actually composed in 1939, at which time it went nowhere, only to be revived in 1949, when it became a hit -to be followed by re-releases several times in the 'fifties, each of which also became "new" hits, namely, Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer. Sleigh Ride, by LeRoy Anderson, was a 1948 song that had a similar trajectory, popular from the outset only to become even more popular when it was re-released several times in the 1950s. Frosty the Snowman was new in 1950, It's Beginning to Look a Lot Like Christmas came along in 1951, I saw mommy kissing Santa Claus was a hit in 1952, Santa Baby (by Eartha Kitt) was new in 1953, the "Chipmunk song" (Christmas don't be late) came along in 1958. The 1940s and 1950s were the halcyon days of creating new Christmas songs and carols. Such music was still fairly popular in the new music market in the 1960s but by the 1970s sales for such songs went flat and they have remained flat ever since at about 20% of the pace of the fifties. No new songs have "moved the needle" in any subsequent years. And few since that time have proven to be very memorable despite the fact that people continue to write such songs. But none have been "catchy" the way the 'classics' of the 50s were, and most have turned out to be concert pieces that amateurs have had any interest in trying to sing for themselves. Among the few to emerge into the standard Christmas music repertoire have been Do You Hear What I Hear? of 1962 and Cyndy Lauper's Early Christmas Morning of 1998. But nearly all of the later Christmas songs have not been carols at all, they have been intended for virtuoso pop music performers. This is true even for one of the best songs of this genre, Enya's 2008 White is in the Winter Night, which goes through the colors of Christmas in its lyrics, red and green and blue, etc. Like other Enya songs this one is pleasant to listen to but just about impossible to imagine any group of carolers ever singing at someone's front door on a December eve. What else has changed since the "golden age" of Christmas songs" has been abandonment of the genre by Jewish musicians. The most popular Christmas song ever written -while this is in dispute- possibly is White Christmas, a 1940 composition sung by Bing Crosby. This smash hit was written by Irving Berlin, a Jew. Other Jewish composers were Felix Bernhardt (Winter Wonderland), Jacob Levinson (Silver Bells), and Frank Loesser (Baby its cold outside). In fact, at least 25 Christmas hits were written by Jews, mostly in the 1940s and 1950s. Even the niece of Senator Jacob Javits, Joan Ellen Javits, got into the act with her pop song, Santa Baby, which she wrote with Philip Springer. What explains Jewish disinterest after those years? Two factors were involved. First was the general decline in interest of musicians of all kinds. After all, this is to discuss the era of the 'sixties when sex, drugs, and rock 'n roll, pushed most other pop music themes aside, or, if songs were religious, they might just as well have commemorated Krishna rather than Christ. Second, Israel became an independent nation in 1948; it took a few years before this new reality permeated Jewish consciousness at large, but it did, and accommodation to Christian traditions no longer made the best sense to many or most Jews in the music business because restoration of the Jewish state became their natural priority. In any case, while levels of popularity of Christmas songs that were achieved in the 1940s and 1950s were never reached again, the genre has continued. A market still exists and it isn't going away even if it now mostly consists of a combination of niches -rock, country, metal, etc.- none of which are dominant in any national sense. But there is something else. The fate of popular Christmas music is more than a question of marketing or ephemeral tastes that don't stay nailed down. Nor is this simply a matter of the "Hallmark quality" -light on content, heavy on sentimentality- that characterizes many seasonal songs, viz., Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas, Its the Most Wonderful Time of the Year, or Here comes Santa Claus. The religious meaning of Christmas, which has always given the holiday its "backbone" -its structure, deepest values, and important associations- has been greatly compromised. And you cannot get the sought for effect merely by playing Silent Night, O Little Town of Bethlehem, or O, Holy Night, ad nauseum on the radio. That may be what media executives want others to think is all that is necessary is to pay homage to religion, but religious people do not think so, not at all. Christmas when all is said is about much more than the birth of Jesus. The reason his nativity is important is because, so Christians believe, Christ would live a life of agony in which he ultimately was killed by a ruthless Roman government that oppressed the people of Judea. Along with this goes Biblical theology about the reality of Satan, about the problem of evil, about human weaknesses, and about suffering. None of which has sales appeal, and Christmas, needless to say, has become a commercial holiday moreso than not. It is no wonder that the religious foundation of the holiday has been elbowed aside. It is no wonder that religious lyrics of many songs are seldom even heard in today's media, replaced by strictly instrumental versions of these traditional songs. O come, O come, Emmanuel still sounds good when played by a string ensemble and doing so allows a business to appeal to non-religious consumers. What this does, however, is to deliver a feel -good melody to the multitudes at the expense of the actual meaning of the song. Here are several of the original verses, uncut: O Come, O come, Emmanuel And ransom captive Israel That mourns in lonely exile here Until the Son of God appear.... O Come, O come, thou lord of might Who to thy tribes, on Sinai's height, In ancient times didst give the law In cloud, and majesty and awe.... O Come, thou rod of Jesse, free Thine own from Satan's tyranny >From the depths of hell thy people save And give them victory o'er the grave..... All of which is Christian Orthodoxy. The words express beliefs that no sincere Christian can compromise away. Jesus is God's son, the law was delivered from the Almighty to the people of Israel, hence to us all, and the big problem we all must face is courage to stand up against evil that is manufactured by Satan that, if we give in to temptation, condemns us to hell. This is not about the latest toys for pre-schoolers, not about the comforts of home in early Winter, nor about good intentions, or about wishing others a bountiful future for the weeks ahead. This is about the place of Jesus in your heart, about standards of right and wrong and basic morality which sets down lines that should not be crossed, and about the existence of the Devil and all that he does to cause mankind to fail and to fall. When you think about it, still other traditional Christmas carols are just as orthodox. Including the cheerful sounding God rest ye merry gentlemen. The lyrics should actually read, "God rest ye merry, gentlemen," which was the original. The song dates to about 1500 AD at a time when "rest" meant something like satisfy and "merry" was defined broadly as well-being or achievement. The carol wishes gentlemen, by extension all Christian people, good things in life, and all that is necessary is to carry on, work hard, and persevere. This isn't about taking it easy or about telling jokes to get a few laughs to chase away the December blues. Here are the words: God rest ye merry, gentlemen Let nothing you dismay Remember Christ our Savior Was born on Christmas Day To save us all from Satan's pow'r When we were gone astray Oh tidings of comfort and joy Comfort and joy Oh tidings of comfort and joy This is still more Christian orthodoxy. Jesus saves us from the powers of Satan, all of us are sinners but Jesus makes it possible for us to overcome evil in our lives through faith in him. "Comfort and joy" are the products of that faith, not a social good that arises automatically because people are naturally good. On the contrary people are naturally wicked and need to rise above the sin implanted within them from the beginning. This said, I'm not sure what to make of the interpretation of this song by the Mormon Tabernacle Choir with a large orchestra and company of dancers This production is available on YouTube and is quite a spectacle. It is Mormon pageantry at its best, a Christmas extravaganza to marvel at. But the Mormons didn't touch the lyrics, which they presented verbatim, including direct reference to the Prince of Evil, Satan. -- -- Centroids: The Center of the Radical Centrist Community <[email protected]> Google Group: http://groups.google.com/group/RadicalCentrism Radical Centrism website and blog: http://RadicalCentrism.org --- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Centroids: The Center of the Radical Centrist Community" group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to [email protected]. 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