The Daily Skunk

            I was thinking about the whole Christmas season that just came and went and decided to post this lecture I delivered last year at Vassar College.  I hope you enjoy it, and if you don’t you’re stupid.

            Friends, I write to you in order to dispel a grave and injurious untruth widely disseminated in these wintry December weeks by our esteemed comrades of the cloth.  During the past few holiday seasons, I’ve been too often subjected to lectures concerning the “true” and “good” nature of Christmas.  Time and time again I’ve been informed that Christmas, at heart, is the celebration of the birth of Christ.  They tell me that Christmas is not about giving or receiving, is not about mistletoe and holly, and above all else, is not about a jolly fat man in a poorly tailored red suit who covertly infiltrates my living room via my chimney, all-the-while leaving presents behind.  No, Christmas, they tell me, is a time for somber self-reflection and gratitude to God for the gift of his son who delivered man from the sins of the world. 
            To all that, I give an emphatic “bah humbug!” in finest Scrooge fashion.  The value of Christmas rests not in its arcane religious significance (for these self-same religious figures all-too-readily admit that the holiday has already lost most of its religious symbolism), or in the celebration of any pseudo-deity’s naissance, but instead in the sentiments and emotions that this holiday so readily evokes in all of us.
            I distinctly remember sitting dismayed in church Sunday last and hearing the minister (a friend of mine) rail against “getting caught up in performing Christmas.”  Christmas, as a performative act, consists of giving to charity, giving and receiving presents to one’s friends and family, and temporarily absolving the grievances of others.  Good Christians, he argued, should be less concerned with buying gifts for friends, less involved in the “spirit” of Christmas, and should celebrate the religion driving the holiday – for the gift-giving and the charity-giving and the goodwill-giving are all consequences flowing from the religious celebration of the holiday.  I was needless-to-say rather shocked to hear this.  What could possibly be wrong with the performative aspect of Christmas?  Isn’t this the very spirit of Christmas?  How can one condemn the good-natured benevolence which seems to flow so readily from this happy holiday?
            To me, it seems like the goods that he was so quick to allege to be “incidental” and “consequential” exceed any of the direct religious goods (of which I’ve seen no demonstration).  Christmas, it seems to me, ought to concern itself more with “peace on earth,” and “goodwill to men,” rather than the “babe born in Bethlehem.”  These goods, cheerfulness and goodwill to strangers and the lessons of giving and receiving, are goods which transcend religious differences and bridge the gap between all men, not merely those of a certain quasi-mythological persuasion.  This is of especial import given the divisive state of affairs in which this holiday finds mankind.
            No, let the religious polemics convince you not: the virtue of Christmas ought not be conflated with the tenets of Christianity, but instead, look to the benefits that this season confers most blatantly.  Christmas ought concern itself first and foremost with Santa and the magic of generosity to one’s fellow men and not with the birth of Christ.