Other doors close, but the stable door is open
Mack Hall

Christmas was close at hand, in all his bluff and hearty honesty. -- Charles Dickens in The Pickwick Papers O NE CANNOT TRAVEL a mile along the road (over the river and through the woods

to Grandmother's FEMA

trailer?) without seeing at least one sign with some variation on "Keep Christ in Christmas," and, next door, wobbling in the wind a giant, grotesque plastic Santa kept standing by an aircompressor - spiritus indeed!

The irony of the first item is that in the English-speaking world Christmas was forbidden after the Reformation. In England and in the American colonies the Puritan fathers (mothers didn't count) made sure under penalty of law that no one even dared look like he might be observing the day in any way. Even with the Restoration, Christmas in England and the colonies was only minimally observed. After all, Christmas had been a Catholic thing, and to this day many church doors still do not open on Christmas.

As for the giant graven (or, rather, inflated) images, Charles Dickens must perhaps answer for that, for it was he who invented Christmas in the middle of the 19th century. However, when we reread A Christmas Carol and the far more delightful "good-humored Christmas Chapter" in The Pickwick Papers, Christ has nothing to do with it. Dickens' Christmas is all about family, kindness to others, and a little mid-winter merriment, and certainly there is nothing wrong with all of that.

But when Prince Albert of Saxe- Coburg-Gotha (aka Queen Victoria's husband) had a tree shipped from Thuringen to England to be set up in Buckingham Palace and decorated, any hope of Christmas as a religious day or at least of continuing to be ignored was over.

After that, everyone had to have a Christmas tree, and now they are made in China instead of grown in Thuringen. And then there was an electric train, and a Daisy Red Ryder air rifle, and Captain Kirk ornaments.

By the way, what was Victoria's secret?

In the 150 years since Dickens and Prince Albert invented Christmas, it has been overwhelmingly secular in England and America. You will look in vain for Joseph, Mary, and the Infant in the Sears catalogue, It's a Wonderful Life, and A Christmas Story.

No, I'm not complaining about the "Keep Christ in Christmas" signs; I simply find them ironic.

There is a whole industry based on What Is Christmas Really About? Books, sermons, roadside signs, little pamphlets passed out by strange people who show up at your door, all claiming that their Christmas is far better than yours: Your Christmas is Pagan. Your Christmas is male-dominated. Your Christmas is capitalistic. Your Christmas is oppressive to non-Christians. Your Christmas is on the wrong date because of a goat's reproductive cycle. Your Christmas has Wise Men and the Bible doesn't say that. Your Christmas is about Santa Claus and that's not right.

However you keep Christmas, there will be any number of people telling you how you're doing it wrong, so you might as well enjoy it.

Perhaps one final thought, one that doesn't disagree with any of the above, should be considered - a quiet remembrance on Christmas Eve that, as C. S. Lewis said, once upon a time a stable was made a door between worlds. Some church doors might be closed on Christmas day, but the stable door remains open.

Mack Hall is a resident of Kirbyville.