One benefit of being old is to see history move from one point to the next, in this case, cultural history. When I was young, I’d listen to my father bemoan the commercialism of Christmas. That was before Christmas was being stuffed in favor of ‘Happy Holidays’, or any iteration of the season, as long as Christ wasn’t in it. Christ and the Christmas crèche, has been fading into obscurity for a long time. Santa became the center of gravity for the holiday for a while but is now going the way of Jesus, ironically. Poor Santa. An assortment of movie characters takes his place. Christmas is now a movie themed event, and the gospel is the same circuit of characters from those movies; (I cited these last year): the ubiquitous Hallmark flicks, Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer, It’s a Wonderful Life, Charlie Brown Christmas, Elf, A Christmas Carol, Grinch, Polar Express, Home Alone, National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation, Miracle on 34th Street. Cable channels put these on a reel and are now playing them 24/7.
I think The Grinch needs a special mention because this year , excluding basic lights, I’m seeing more Grinch theme decorations over all the others. I first noted this a few years ago, to casually observe that homes occupied by known progressives, particularly those demonstrating special affinity toward lesbian interests, were the most eager to feature the Grinch. Since then, it’s grown and it’s starting to make sense. It’s easy to understand how progressives would choose the Grinch to be their patron saint of the Yuletide season. There are so many affinities. One irony of this is the original story was written by none other than Dr. Seuss, an author that was actively censored by Amazon, progressives, schools and libraries, and yet they somehow felt fine identifying with this one character as their mascot.
I’m not a hardline dogmatist that believes or insists that there is only one true Christmas meaning, in the sense that culturally and historically, Jesus is sort of a minority in this whole borrowed or appropriated holiday, but I respect the place of a ‘traditional Christmas’ and believe it wholly intolerable that the antichrist contingent still makes active war against the Christian Christmas. I also think that the Grinch-centric Christmas should have the flashlight of truth turned on it, after all, these are public displays. Is this really what you people want? It’s easy to explain it away as dark humor, and by the way, even though the Seuss origin is a redemption story, you will never ever see that finale celebrated on anyone’s lawn. The Grinch is adored for sadism. That’s it, the whole story, the beginning and end, the alpha and omega. We’d be better off reverting to Saturnalia.
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A helpful introduction to the author in my ABOUT