My Christmas Screed

This compiles something I threw up on Bluesky because I was thinking about Christmas and what it means to me. I was thinking of a much spicier take–building on the transparency of the “war on Christmas” disinformation–but I (wisely?) decided against it.

Anyway, as absolutely no one was asking for this . . .

I was raised in a Scots Presbyterian household. When I say I was raised Christian, I mean exactly that. Charity was extremely important—though it was directed mostly at church-sponsored programs, that did include sponsoring refugee families arriving in our area.

That’s not to say my parents were saints. They surely judged others (while also judging themselves), but hate was not something I connected to my parents’ faith. Generosity and hospitality were—though that may have been the Scots as much as the Presbyterian.

Christmas remains a really important part of my life, it is part of my family tradition even while the Christian church isn’t. I respect the lessons recorded in the New Testament and attributed to Jesus—not so much those attributed to his apostles, but that’s part of the deal, I guess.

To my Christian friends out there: Merry Christmas. I love you and respect you as you try to live up to an amazing role model. I do not share your faith, but I share so much of the philosophy that underpins your faith.

To everyone else: also, Merry Christmas. As I have Muslim friends and Hindu friends and Jewish friends, and a whole heaping of atheist friends, I know that none of you are offended by this. There is no “war on Christmas.” There may be an attempt to be more inclusive, but that’s being polite.

Being friendly and understanding and inclusive and even polite and respectful of others seems to have been a thing Christ taught and how he lived. I think on the day celebrating his birth, it’d be nice if we all remembered that.