A Series of Outright Lies About Christmas

Image by Ren Norman

by Ben Howard and Sebastian Faust 

There's a lot of misinformation in the world today. Some argue that's simply the nature of the internet and the democratization of information itself. A lot of websites exist to fight the good fight in an attempt to right these factual wrongs and a well-informed public is thankful for them. 

But we're not one of those websites. So with the fundamental ethos of the internet in mind, we bring you A Series of Outright Lies About Christmas.

1) Rudolph's glowing nose is the side-effect of the 52 megaton hydrogen bomb that awakened both him and his sworn enemy, Godzilla.  Since that day, the two have been locked in mortal combat, a struggle so fierce and terrifying that not even Japanese film dares to depict it.

2) Many of our most cherished Christmas traditions come from the now-lost proto-gnostic Gospel of Kringle. The book includes detailed instructions on how to hang tiny decorative lanterns outside one’s hovel and also prophecies the coming of a great snowy man with a corn cob pipe and a top hat despite none of those things existing in the region of Syria where the author lived.

3) The Salvation Army is nearly ready to undertake the armed revolution it has been plotting for 150 years, funded entirely by individual donations to their bell-ringers around the world.

4) The ancient druids believed that the north pole was actually a sacred site where sits the portal to another realm, a world ruled by a white-bearded deity dressed in red, borne upon a flying chariot pulled by nine immortal stags.  This angry god seeks vengeance all, but is unable to enter any home warded by a Fraser fir bedecked with tinsel.

5) Dick Cheney, long before becoming the most evil man in American history, made a run at trying to offer the world an alternative to Santa. Despite making inroads with niche markets who appreciated Cheney's commitment to Machiavellian plotting over the jovial spirit of St. Nick, Cheney was forced to abandon his dream to become Vice-President and the right hand of the Devil.

Image by John Leech

6) Mrs. Claus has tiny, tiny hands.

7) In 1982, Ebenezer Scrooge of Poughkeepsie, New York filed a lawsuit against the estate of Charles Dickens for defamation of character. He eventually settled out of court for an undisclosed sum and currently resides in a seaside villa on the Pacific coast where he has reported no problems with ghosts whatsoever.

8) Despite the perfect synergy and obvious pun potential, X-Men do not celebrate Xmas.

9) In response to Al Gore’s 2006 film An Inconvenient Truth, Santa ceased the distribution of coal to naughty children. Instead, naughty children received a sternly worded letter in their stockings outraging Christian political groups who argued that giving coal to children was central to their expression of faith.

10) Santa does not keep an entire population of little people in subjugation, forcing them to craft toys in squalid conditions and brutally making examples of those that step out of line.
 
Ben Howard is an accidental iconoclast and generally curious individual living in Nashville, Tennessee. He is also the editor-in-chief of On Pop Theology and an avid fan of waving at strangers for no reason. You can follow him on Twitter @BenHoward87.  

Sebastian Faust is an avowed heretic, armchair theologian, and a self-styled canary in the coal mine of pop culture. He takes life by the reins, bulls by the horns, and tigers by the tail, all while living in Nashville. You can't follow Sebastian on Twitter because he doesn't understand technology. 

You can follow On Pop Theology on Twitter @OnPopTheology or like us on Facebook at www.facebook.com/OnPopTheology. If you'd like to support what we do, you can donate via the button on the right of the screen.
  

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I Like Christmas Without The "Christ"

Image via Alan Cleaver

by Ben Howard

I have a lot of nostalgia for Christmas. I vaguely remember going to see Santa at the mall when I was little and squinting at him, cocking my head to the side, trying to contemplate how he got into our house since we didn’t have a chimney. I was very worried about our lack of a chimney. I remember re-arranging presents under the tree and trying to guess what was inside in the days leading up to Christmas morning. We watched Rudolph and Frosty and Charlie Brown too in those days. 

A few weeks ago I found myself watching the three Christmas-themed episodes of the show Community. In its rather wonderful satirical way, one episode pokes fun at the political correctness that has come to dominate so many discussions of Christmas. The Dean dresses up as “non-denominational Mr. Winter” and refuses to decorate the school with Christmas trees. A separate episode, shot almost entirely in claymation, follows the study-group on a magical Christmas journey replete with a little drummer boy, a toy robot, and the Cave of Frozen Memories, all of which turns out to be the delusional fantasy of one of the show's characters. Another focuses on the group's putting on a Christmas pageant (while simultaneously mocking Glee).

These stories, even with their heavy satirical edge, resonated with my own experiences of Christmas: the holiday festivals at school, the claymation TV specials, and the Christmas programs and pageants (I played a turtle in a 4th grade Christmas play; I’m told I was excellent).

Image via The Turtle Hospital

But I’m always struck by a curious incongruity when I think back on the Christmases of my youth. Even though I was raised in a church and I’m the son (and grandson) of a preacher, none of my childhood Christmas memories aren't even remotely religious. 

It’s not that I didn’t know that Christmas was religious, it’s just that the tradition I grew up in didn’t place any particular significance on it. In opposition to the “Keep Christ in Christmas” and “Reason for the season” crowds, I was far more likely to hear people discuss how Jesus was probably born in the spring or how the Bible never says how many  wise men there were or some other deconstruction of the romanticized version of the Christmas story. Needless to say, we didn’t go to church on Christmas because there was nothing particularly special to celebrate. In fact, I vaguely remember church being cancelled when Christmas fell on a Sunday. 

It wasn’t until my early twenties when I started diving into theology and regularly attending a liturgical church that I started to appreciate the Advent/Christmas season for its religious value. As I’ve grown and learned, the incarnation has become increasingly important to me adding even more depth to this time of year. And while I’m not particularly good at waiting, I look forward to Advent as an opportunity to take another shot at patience.

Image via Brent Flanders

But I’m still left with this cognitive divide. While Advent feels holy and spiritual to me, I still experience Christmas as the cultural, secular festival that I grew up with. I adore the dark nights filled with the songs of waiting and longing which make up early December and find the theology of incarnation and renewal beautiful. Yet, when I hear “Christmas,” I think of decorations and reindeer and a large smiling man trying to stuff himself down a chimney. I think of Red Rider BB Gun’s and Bing Crosby. 

I love Christmas, but I’d be lying if I said it had anything to do with Christ. To me Christmas is friends and family, food and laughter, gifts and stockings hung over a fireplace, and I’m perfectly happy for it to stay that way. I'm perfectly happy with a Christmas without the "Christ." 

Ben Howard is an accidental iconoclast and generally curious individual living in Nashville, Tennessee. He is also the editor-in-chief of On Pop Theology and an avid fan of waving at strangers for no reason. You can follow him on Twitter @BenHoward87.  

You can follow On Pop Theology on Twitter @OnPopTheology or like us on Facebook at www.facebook.com/OnPopTheology. If you'd like to support what we do, you can donate via the button on the right of the screen.
  

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