HAS THE “SPIRIT” OF CHRISTMAS LEFT US?
At age 87 I have a lot of mostly good memories of Christmases past—of the America that once was (but is no more), and of the many people who “traveled” with me over my life’s road, at least for part of it. How much more time I’ll have to enjoy all of these memories only my Savior and LORD Jesus knows. But I would like to share a few of these “old” memories with you once again. So bear with me. Perhaps you share similar memories. I hope so. If not now, then when you get “old and experienced”, like me.
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++
Old Ebenezer Scrooge would have loved the ACLU (‘Anti-Christian Liberties Union’) (sic) in his really bad days when he was the “Grinch” who hated Christmas. At this time of year, especially, the communist-oriented “American Civil Liberties Union” (ACLU) is burning the midnight oil in its unceasing struggle to “protect” us from reminders of just Who is “the reason for the season”. The Satanic “Freedom From Religion” Foundation is surely doing the same. Columnist Cal Thomas once quipped, “The ACLU and other groups are performing their annual ritual of keeping the public square (including the ‘public’ schools) clean of any mention of Jesus Christ, unless that mention is intended as a curse word. In such a case, the ACLU will leap to the defense.”
It wasn’t always this way in the America that once was. Not by a long shot. But the curse of Marxist mischief and leftist/progressive GovThink has changed our nation slowly into one wherein the Word of God is only barely tolerated! For how much longer it will be tolerated is anyone’s guess, because the Marxist vermin who have infested and basically taken control of our government and our culture are becoming increasingly strident in their hatred of all things pertaining to Judaism and Christianity. How much longer the celebration of Hanukkah and Christmas itself will be “allowed” I can’t say, but unless one is willfully blind, the “handwriting” for the extinction of all religious traditions and observances—including Christmas—and all other faiths’ celebration of “holy” days, and ALL of our patriotic festivities-- is on the wall for ALL to see! Deny that if you must, but if you do, perhaps YOU are part of the problem! Perhaps YOU are one of our socialist/progressive/Marxist enemies!
When I was growing up in the America that once was, way back in the “ancient” times from the late 1930’s, through all of the 1940’s and most of the 1950’s, our country was blessed with relative normalcy, even though a world war, so loved by our enemies in “The New World Order” even then, was in progress for part of that time (they DO love their wars, don’t they?) In that long ago but fondly remembered America that once was, a time that has just about faded away, Christmas meant something special to Christians and non-Christians alike, and that special something was out in the open for all to appreciate. In those halcyon days of fading memory both real Christians and most of the rest of the population respected the celebration of the birth of the Savior, the Prince of Peace, and most people extended their “good will” toward others, and it was usually reciprocated. Merchants didn’t put out Christmas decorations until a few weeks before Christmas.
Even irreligious folks in those days tried to live by the teachings of Jesus some of the time (He was a “great inspirational teacher”, you know), and wonder of wonders—society did not implode over nativity scenes on the grounds of the local courthouse or fire station, or because of prayers recited in school (even, of course, the prayer that “Christmas”—not “winter holidays”—would soon be here). The heads of a relatively few leftist/liberal moonbats might have “exploded” in those days over such “shameless” and “obviously unconstitutional” public displays of religious worship, but intelligent Americans back in that America that once was paid no heed to the twisted and hateful thinking that oozed out of what passed for “minds” in those whacky creatures.
In the America that once was, non-Christians or non-Jews rarely ran around our streets seeking Christians and Jews to molest, ridicule, harass, and beat up. The sub-human debris known as “AntiFa” and “Black Lives Matter” were just glimmers in the minds of the relatively few anti-Americans who infested the nation in those years—anti-Americans who lurked mostly in “our” federal government and in academia. Churches and synagogues and businesses run by their devotees were not torched or deliberately vandalized as they are today, to our shame. And although anti-Semitism did exist in various pockets in our nation back in those days, especially (but not exclusively) in northern cities, it was more “subtle”, less violently “in your face” than it is today (our country wasn’t infested, then, with violent and disgusting “Jew haters” whose “false” religion “mandated” such foolish and anti-religious and anti-God behavior). Racism, to our shame, also existed throughout much of our land in those days, although surprisingly I think separation of the races was much more prevalent in the north. It surely was in my home town of Cleveland (Lakewood), Ohio. Criminals, from shoplifters to murderers, got their day in court most of the time, and almost always paid the price for their unlawful behavior.
Surprisingly, in those primitive days in the America that once was, when plaques of the 10 Commandments hung on the walls of many classrooms in our public schools, the students actually read them (kids in those days could actually READ well by the time they were half way through grade school). Judges in those days seemed to encourage this in the hope that those students would obey those Commandments and make our society a better place. Where were the judicial “activists” from the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals when we needed them to rescue impressionable youth from the “scourge” of being forced to read and perhaps even pattern their lives on those 10 Commandments?
There was a time in pre-colonial America when it was forbidden to celebrate Christmas. The Pilgrims and Puritans did not celebrate Christmas at all, for they felt that celebrating it had become a non-spiritual time of merriment and drunkenness in England and in Holland (where many of them lived from 1608 to 1620 to escape severe persecution for their “separatist beliefs” from the English government and the Church of England). Christmas “celebrations” in today’s America are not much different than they were back in Elizabethan England, sad to say. Since it was not a Scriptural requirement, and since no one knew just when Jesus was really born, why celebrate at all, they opined. So they, and many other early colonists of the 1600’s and 1700’s, including the Puritans of the Massachusetts Bay Colony, didn’t. In fact, they passed laws against such celebrations. Violators who were caught celebrating Christmas or decorating their homes were fined by the local authorities.
I hope that the ACLU doesn’t decide to look into trying to get that old legislation resurrected, but anything is possible with that scurvy bunch of anti-Christians, anti-Conservatives, and anti-Americans. Of course, our anti-Christian and anti-American “main stream media” has done a credible job of attacking people of faith and all things “Traditional Americana” over the years from my youth to the present. In the America that once was the hatred of America by the “main stream media” wasn’t as blatant as it is today, but it was still there, lurking in the columns of well known newspaper writers whose real allegiance was toward the German Nazi Party (YES—that vile party), Marxism and the Devil’s vermin who ran the Soviet Union. The New York Times was infamous for ALL of this treachery. I hope that God will forgive them for all the evil that they perpetrated and the lies they deliberately reported, but I won’t! Not ever!
My earliest memory of Christmas in the America that once was occurred during the Christmas celebration of 1940 (I think—although it might have been the Christmas Eve of 1941). Only my father’s adoptive mother, my step-grandmother Elizabeth Gray (1863-1949), who lived with us in frigid northern Ohio (in a suburb of Cleveland), was a Christian. I remember that a few days before that long-ago Christmas Eve some members of her church came to our front door on a snowy, cold night and sang a few carols for her, and all of us. That’s what church members did, in the America that once was.
I remember Christmas songs (not usually heard in those days in the America that once was until two or three weeks before Christmas) sung or played on “The Grand Old Opry” radio station that my father listened to occasionally. But on that Christmas Eve my grandmother, Elizabeth, and my mom, Ann, whisked me up to bed really early because “Santa” would soon be at our house. Sure enough, as I struggled valiantly to stay awake, I heard the “sleigh bells” of Santa’s sleigh and reindeer. They must be landing on the roof, I thought. We had no fireplace or chimney, but a 4-or 5-year-old doesn’t believe in rocking the boat by asking stupid questions about how Santa would get into our house. Somehow he would (probably through our front door). Well, the next morning, our Christmas tree had lots of presents under it, even in those end-of-the-depression era days when my father hadn’t worked for years at a real job. Santa had come to our home once again, as he always did in those days, in the America that once was.
Yes, “Santa Claus”, not Jesus, was an important part of our Christmases in that America that once was, the only part for all of my childhood, since my father never had any religious beliefs—he didn’t even believe in atheism, and seemed to hate everyone equally—blacks, whites, Christians, Jews—especially Catholics. He didn’t encourage any religious discussion between me and my grandmother (although she did try from time to time until she passed away in 1949). My early Christmases were all about getting presents, eating my grandmother’s totally fabulous English plum pudding with warm white sauce (that I can still taste), and gorging on my mother’s equally fabulous roast turkey and stuffing. If Christmas was about anything else in those halcyon days, it didn’t register in my youthful brain.
If you have ever watched that classic Christmas film, The Christmas Story, you’ll know exactly how it was when I was a kid growing up in the late 1930’s, all of the 1940’s, and most of the 1950’s, in the America that once was. Exactly! That wonderful movie was even filmed partly in Cleveland, Ohio, my hometown, some of it in downtown Cleveland around the “Public Square” and the “Terminal Tower Complex”. I got my first “Red Ryder” BB gun when I was around nine or ten, and yes—my mom worried that “I would shoot my eye out”. But I didn’t. (A few windows and light bulbs, yes, but eyes, no. And I still have that original Red Ryder BB gun, I’ll have you know. Like me, it doesn’t function too well any longer.)
Every Christmas time during the 1940’s my Mom took me in a “streetcar” from Lakewood to Woolworth’s 5 & 10 cent store on the public square in downtown Cleveland (the one next to The Terminal Tower train station complex) for one of their fantastic hamburgers and chips (not French fries, and we seldom used cheese on a burger in those days), and afterwards, just like Ralphie in The Christmas Story, I stood in front of the big windows of Higbees Department Store on that same public square in downtown Cleveland during all of those Christmases of the 1940’s, drooling over toys that I would never have (although I had a pretty extensive American Flyer electric train layout in our basement). I don’t recall EVER sitting on “Santa’s Lap” to tell him what I wanted him to bring me for Christmas. And yes, I DID have a “Little Orphan Annie” decoder to learn what she was sending to me on her radio program (I can’t recall any of her messages), and yes, I did “drink my Ovaltine” sometimes, although I always preferred hot chocolate. I’ll bet that some of you also shared those great experiences, back in the America that once was. Those of you who didn’t will never know what you missed by being born too late! I’m truly sorry about that, but you’ll never know just how wonderful it was in those days.
Most of us have fond memories of Christmases past in the America that once was. It is pleasant to think on the “old days” (whenever they were for each one of us) when life was more family centered and much less hectic. People in my parents’ day had lived through the ‘not-so-great’ Depression and they had survived World War 11, so they knew something of hardships and uncertainties and government rationing and controls over their lives. They weren’t perfect people nor were they totally idyllic times, but many people in those ‘good old days’—in the America that once was-- had something that is in short supply today—FAITH in the Rock of Christ, the expectation that the free enterprise system would allow them to provide a better future for their kids than they had experienced, and the certainty that things would not continue the way they had, but surely would get much better. I’m ashamed to admit that I was well into adulthood before I discovered those blessings.
People in those days—in the America that once was--had survived the ravages of the purposely induced (by the unconstitutional “Federal Reserve Banking system”) decade-long depression, they had survived the fascist/socialist laws and executive orders of the despicable anti-Constitutionalist and racist, the anti-semitic President Franklin Roosevelt and his welcoming of communists and communist influence (and the “globalist” influence of the Council On Foreign Relations, of which he was a long-time member) into his administration as he, and they, prescribed their unconstitutional “New Deal” panaceas for Americans (which only served to prolong the “depression” and make our economic suffering much worse). And, of course, they had survived years of the carnage of WW11, with its shortages and rationings and grieving families in England, Canada, and the States. People in those days were much tougher than people today. They had to be in order to survive. I seriously doubt that most people today have that same degree of “toughness” in order to survive the economic and social “challenges” that appear to be headed our way. I hope I’m wrong
Well, things sure have changed since I was a kid in the America that once was, and probably since you were a kid, also. But one thing never has changed, nor ever will—our Savior’s love for us as promised in His Word, which also never changes. You’ll recall that in his famous book, A Christmas Carol (1843), Charles Dickens even had old Scrooge change at the end. It would have been more to the point if Dickens had written openly that Scrooge had become a true Christian, but that probably would have offended the tender sensibilities of some “perpetually offended” moonbats even in pre-ACLU Victorian times. But the assumption of those readers was that old Scrooge had become a Christian. As it is, we can only have a “hope”—we can only conjecture in our thoughts--- that Scrooge became a Christian, since it was said that he “knew how to keep Christmas well”. May it be said of us, also, that in our time on earth we knew how to keep Christmas truly well by honoring our LORD Jesus with gifts of our time and money, and our love and obedience to His Word, and not just enriching our earthly masters (the banks and credit card companies). Tiny Tim said it well: “God bless us, every one.” Indeed. Merry Christmas!
