Dear Editor
Recently CBC Radio asked listeners to phone in and give the song which meant Christmas to them. My brain immediately thought Joy To The World, It Came Upon A Midnight Clear, or any part of the Christmas section of Handel鈥檚 Messiah and so on. Well, am I in a world of my own! Some callers said such songs as Silver Bells. Yes, a pretty melody 鈥� but if anyone knows all the words it could almost be a merchants鈥� jingle for the Christmas season. (Oh, pardon: The Holidays.) Most callers, however, went with such titles as Grandma Got Run Over By A Reindeer.
Grandma Got Run Over By A Reindeer. I expect the old dear (oh, sorry!) was on her way to the Christmas Eve service? More likely on her way home from the casino. Once upon a time, when the one-roomed schools and the small town schools had their Christmas concerts I bet that most of the students know about a dozen carols off by heart, every verse. Of course the concerts had funny skits, plays and recitations, but there would be sacred solos and verses and choruses and the grand finale of the Nativity story. Then the times changed. The rural schools were closed and the town school had minority groups tell them there should be no Christ in Christmas concerts and, as seems quite common in Canada, the minority groups won.
Then why are they still called Christmas concerts; why not just Winter concerts?
Why still call Christmas Christmas at all. A true Christmas card is hard to find, plenty of Happy Holidays with Santa Claus and snowmen. It can be called All You Can Eat Day. That brings me to something else. We hear at this time of the year to give so that less fortunate people can have a fine Christmas dinner. And we hear it said that no one should be alone at Christmas. Of course, the rest of the year they can starve to death on their own 鈥� and that鈥檚 just their tough luck.
People say they can鈥檛 go to church Christmas Eve, they have company coming over on Christmas Day, or they can鈥檛 go to church on Easter Sunday because they are having an Easter egg hunt. So there鈥檚 a thought. Easter could be called Boiled Egg Day. I鈥檓 just being realistic. Christians are hell-bent to destroy Christianity. Well, Christianity is just like anything else: there will always be someone out there who will take anything and use it for evil. I always use the example of Madame Curie discovering the atom. I doubt if the evil side of her, so to speak, stood up and said, 鈥淗ooray! Let鈥檚 make a bomb.鈥�
No, she didn鈥檛. But someone else did.
It must have been Madame Curie鈥檚 fault, or the fault of the atom. It could not possibly be the fault of those who made the bomb, so let鈥檚 blame her anyway, she discovered the atom.
I鈥檇 like to wish everyone a Happy Christmas but it isn鈥檛 politically correct, of course.
Happy Christmas, anyway. I could say that for a New Year鈥檚 Resolution we should all try to abolish political correctness.
Meanwhile, watch out for reindeer on your way to church Christmas Eve.
Christine Pike
Waseca
