I\u2019d be more sympathetic to complaints about the war on Christmas if they weren\u2019t coming from the very people who have waged a largely successful war on Advent. Because, let\u2019s face it, the idea that Christmas should be celebrated in early December, or even mid-December, is not a Christian concept; Christmas celebrations historically were confined to \u201d\u00a6 Christmas. They were even banned in several of the Protestant colonies, and once the bans were lifted, Christmas remained unrecognizably low-key by today\u2019s standards. The monthlong Christmas celebration is a secular invention, promoted and pushed a little harder each year by a retail industry bent on doing what it does best: convince us to buy more and more things we don\u2019t need.<\/p>\n
And the complaint about a societal war on Christmas is not a religious complaint; it\u2019s a political complaint, which politicians have used quite effectively to make too many people believe that Christians have been marginalized by the larger society \u201d\u201d as if we weren\u2019t ourselves the larger society.<\/p>\n
Adding insult to spiritual injury, the assault on Advent crowds out the real observation of Christmas \u201d\u201d the one that starts on the evening of Dec. 24 and runs through Epiphany, 12 days later. Try to find a Christmas carol then or, after the new year, anyone who even says \u201chappy holidays,\u201d\u009d much less \u201cmerry Christmas.\u201d\u009d<\/p>\n