My grandmother, my maternal grandmother, was a sweet woman who wore a wig, knitted obsessively, and, without any notice or discretion, would all at once start humming from what must have been a very thick mental hymn book. When visiting hotels or restaurants you might find her compulsively if kindly leaving behind her tiny little glossy books called “Our Daily Bread” which shamelessly doled out religiously-minded Christian soldier anecdotes. By way of example there is only one that I remember. It was a story of a boy in a tree and his father who said, “Get out of the tree right now.” The story continued that the boy listened to his father and got, directly, out of the tree. The end of the story found a snake in the tree just where the boy had been. The point, as I remember it was listen to your parents but also not to question the authority of your parents and by extension the authority of God. They were parables for the spiritual deficient. Chicken Soup for the agnostic. Besides these habits, she was a lovely woman who, if she judged, judged quietly.

There were not many things that she revealed to others that irked her. But I remember that, besides perhaps her daughter, my mother, that thing that she appeared to be the most vexed by was “Xmas.” “They took the most important part out,” she would worry. It really distressed her. Every time we passed a sign with the offending notice she might interrupt her knitting or her hymn-humming to worry herself. “Christ belongs in Christmas,” she would insist.

It occurs to me that you don’t really see “X-mas” anymore. But it’s not really that, after all, marketers listened to my grandmother and those of her ilk. It’s not really that Christ belongs in Christmas. You don’t see “X-mas” anymore because you don’t see “Christmas” anymore.

I’m not the first one to notice, I suppose. Christmas, it seems, lasted through the me-generation and seems to have fallen off. Take a look. Take a listen. Everything is 践olidays”. Or nearly everything. Stores are having Holiday sales. Companies are having Holiday parties. People are buying Holiday presents. If you go to a Hallmark store, yes, with some effort, you might see Santa Claus, and you might see “Merry Christmas” but more than likely you will see “Season’s Greetings” and “Happy Holidays.” Once you start to notice it, it becomes really funny.

We have become some part of more aware, more multicultural, or more politically correct. As it turns out, Grandma, it turns out Christ does not belong, not really, in Christmas. Because there are, we’ve begun to notice, quite a few non-Christians.

But we’re in a funny period too, perhaps a transitional stage. “A Holiday tradition” on TV might still be “A Charlie Brown Christmas” where Linus will tell us the real reason for the season quoted directly from Luke 2: 8-14. And of course, in stores announcing “Holiday Sales” and “Holiday Prices”, you might very well be swaddled in Christmas music where in between Reindeer, bells, snow, resurrected snowmen, you might very well be made to suffer songs that celebrate the birth of Jesus.

Meanwhile, of course, where there is boredom and a website, there is a community of well-meaning Christian soldiers eager to save “Merry Christmas”. But, of course, marketing will appear to forsake Christ just as thoroughly and just as quickly as His Father. There is no saving “Merry Christmas”. You can watch their lost cause at www.savemerrychristmas.com.

I’m not sure how Grandma, if she were still among us, would take this. She believed “He is the reason for the season” but, historically, that’s never been especially true. At least she wouldn’t have to deal with the sleight of “X-mas.”

SS