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I love holiday movies.
I watch “It’s a Wonderful Life” at least twice in the days before Christmas, once when it’s broadcast and once on DVD so I can see it without commercials.
“The Bishop’s Wife” and the remade version “The Preacher’s Wife” have to be watched, as does “The Christmas Carol.”
I have a couple of versions of the Dickens classic I like, but the musical with Kelsey Grammer hamming it up as Scrooge isn’t one of them.
We always trot out “The Grinch Who Stole Christmas,” the cartoon, not the execrable Jim Carrey version. “Polar Express” has become one of our favorites, even though the grinches, er, critics thought it was overblown. “The Santa Clause” movies are mediocre at best, but I watch them anyway.
I also watch a variety of pretty awful made-for-TV movies on the cable channels.
You know the ones I’m talking about. The plots are thin, you know what’s going to happen after the first few minutes, and if you seriously doubt that the main character who is supposed to be Santa Claus really is Santa, well, then, you’ve missed the entire point of wasting two hours watching the film.
I do draw the line occasionally. Some of them are so bad they can’t be watched. And Jenny McCarthy jumps on my last nerve, so anything she’s in won’t be watched.
Explicitly or not, the main theme of almost every single Christmas movie is “the true spirit of Christmas.”
We learn from these movies that the true spirit of Christmas is believing — in either Santa Claus or miracles.
Or the true spirit of Christmas is love, and that love conquers all, especially in romantic comedies.
Or the true spirit of Christmas is giving. Give without regarding to receiving, and you will have captured that true spirit.
How about this one? Christmas is about children and the wonder they have during the season.
All those sentiments are fine, but they are all carefully crafted for a wide audience.
But I confess to being distressed when I hear those sentiments expressed by the people who bear the name contained within the word “Christmas.”
Although all those sentiments fit in well with Christian theology, to be sure, but the true meaning of Christmas goes beyond fluffy platitudes.
The Bible declares that in the birth of Christ, God became man and dwelt among us. That in some unfathomable way, God deigned to reduce himself to our level so that we might rise to his.
For much of the world, this is pure humbug. An impossibility.
But if it is true, and that is a decision each individual must make, it places constraints on what we can call the “true spirt of Christmas.”
Christmas isn’t just about love because the twaddle we proclaim about human love cannot compare with a God who loves humanity by becoming one with it.
It’s not about giving, unless you speak of a sacrifice that goes beyond forgoing a few hours of our time to serve those less fortunate than we are.
And it’s not about children, even though the story of Jesus begins with a swaddled child lying in a manger, because Christ’s purposes could not be fulfilled by a child.
In a sense, though, Christmas is about believing. Not about believing in Santa Claus, especially not the red-coated, chubby-cheeked, Coca-Cola created icon we call Santa today.
And it’s not about believing in the “magic of the season,” unless you are speaking of the theologically imbued “deep magic” of C.S. Lewis’ Narnian Chronicles, a metaphor for the mystery that is incarnation and redemption.
No, Christmas isn’t about magic. It’s about how God chooses to act in the world and whether we are willing to believe and commit ourselves to that belief.
The frivolity surround Christmas really demands little of us. The true spirit of Christmas demands all of us.
Merry Christmas and a happy New Year.
Michael O’Connor can be reached at editor@trcle.com.
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