Back in the day, we celebrated Christmas morning with an early breakfast and a walk along a stretch of beach. No exchange of presents, and the lunch or dinner that day was often at a hotel or one prepared for us.
These days it means a walk with the dog in a quiet neighborhood, and fried bacon with French toast followed by opening presents around the tree. Later in the day a good, slow dinner with turkey and a Riesling.
There’s a good op-ed by an unusual source in today’s NY Times about Christmas: http://www.nytimes.com/2015/12/25/opinion/the-christmas-revolution.html?ref=international&_r=0. In the op-ed, Wehner writes: “Because the Christmas story has been told so often for so long, it’s easy even for Christians to forget how revolutionary Jesus’ birth was. The idea that God would become human and dwell among us, in circumstances both humble and humiliating, shattered previous assumptions. It was through this story of divine enfleshment that much of our humanistic tradition was born.”
OK, so it’s a Western view and excludes other religious myths as well as the humanism implicit in the assuagement of suffering which comes from science, but it’s an interesting point that Wehner makes. (This is the one flaw; it’s unreasonable to say, “much of our humanistic tradition was born.”)
Meanwhile it’s time to fry the bacon.
