NYT's Whose Christmas Is It:

[rasputin1952]

Michael Feinstein


ABOUT 10 years ago, I was doing a weekend of Christmas concerts, accompanied by a fine regional symphony in California. The first night went well, I thought, with a program of holiday classics that seemed beyond reproach. The song choices were about as controversial as a Creamsicle.

But I was wrong. Minutes before I walked onstage the second night, a nervous representative of the orchestra board appeared in my dressing room to tell me that my program was “too Jewish.” Wow, I thought, who knew that orchestra management played practical jokes on artists moments before their shows? My laughter turned to disbelief when the stuttering gentleman said that there had, in fact, been complaints.

<snip>

The evolution of Christmas is reflected to a degree in its music. As the holiday has become more secular, so have its songs, with religious and spiritual compositions largely supplanted by the banalities of Rudolph, sleigh bells and Santa. Many Christians feel that the true essence of Christmas has been lost, and I respect that opinion. It must be difficult to see religious tradition eroded in the name of commerce and further dissipated by others’ embrace of a holiday without a sense of what it truly means to the faithful.

Yet I also hope that those who feel this encroachment will on some level understand that the spirit of the holiday is universal. We live in a multicultural time and the mixing, and mixing up, of traditions is an inevitable result. Hence we have the almost century-old custom of American Jews creating a lot more Christmas music than Hanukkah music.

<snip>

...It doesn’t take Freud to figure out that the sugarplums, holly and mistletoe all tap into a sense of comfort, longing, security and peace that so many fervently desire; that we all wish the clichés were true. As Jews, Christians, Muslims, Mormons, Buddhists and everything in between, we are all more alike than we are different. That’s something to celebrate.


http://www.nytimes.com/2009/12/18/opinion/18feinstein.html?adxnnl=1&ref=opinion&adxnnlx=1261138104-V0OdBFlScxvOBwKsgw6F2g

[cornermouse]

1. That probably should be "whose" rather than "who's"

[rasputin1952]

2. Oops...thanks...

:D

[cornermouse]

3. No problem.

I didn't intend to be pushy or anything. I just tend to notice things like that.

[rasputin1952]

4. I had to laugh...thought about "The English Major"...

when I took ENG 101, we discussed how English Majors/Instructors always found the typo or the road sign or billboard that was in error. They could go by some historical site w/o blinking an eye...but if the sign was misspelled, a half hour rant would ensue...:D

[TexasObserver]

5. Yes, the "pissed Christians" are making Christmas a war zone.

I got six of the same email this year, from various friends and relatives. It proclaims proudly that THEY will celebrating Christmas as an honor to the birth of Jesus, and they aren't going to let anyone rain on their misapprehension of when Jesus was born or why Dec 25th is the day they celebrate it.

Of course, it's all part of the same theme such people live in all things: "You suck, but God has me on speed dial."