Peace and Goodwill Are the Reasons for the Season — MRFF Board Member John Compere Highlights the Inclusive Celebrations of the Winter Holiday Season
Our American winter holiday season begins and ends with secular holidays (Thanksgiving Day and New Year’s Day). In between are secular, religious, ethnic and cultural celebrations. They are merging yet different seasonal traditions.
Peace and goodwill are the reasons for the season. Our winter holidays become the season of peace and goodwill when they are inclusive and not exclusive. There will be peace on the earth and goodwill to men, women and children when we respect the traditions of others and reject the badwill of those who presumptuously proclaim their tradition to be the exclusive reason for the season.
Our secular celebrations are inclusive and involve Thanksgiving family gatherings with feasts, Winter Solstice observances, Santa Clause, elves, flying reindeer, red-nosed Rudolph, sleighs with bells, snowmen/women, gift-giving, fireplace stockings, decorative trees, holly, poinsettias, mistletoe, eggnog, candy canes, fruit cakes, caroling, the Grinch, holiday cheer, welcoming the New Year with fireworks, and much more.
Religious celebrations are exclusive and involve only those practicing a particular religion. It is significant to note less than 50% of Americans belong to a church, synagogue or mosque (Gallup) and one in three Americans identify as non-religious or “Nones” (Pew Research ). America is truly a nation of independence, freedom and diversity of beliefs.
Yuletide celebrations and decorated trees originated with pagan winter festivals of Germanic people from European antiquity and are not in religious scriptures. “Season’s Greetings” and “Happy Holidays” refer to the entire festive period and all traditions. “Merry Christmas” refers to one day and one tradition. The word “Christmas” means “Christ’s mass” which is an exclusive ritual of a foreign origin religion.
Early American colonists (Puritans, Congregationalists, Quakers, Methodists, Baptists, et al) opposed celebrating Christmas because it was a Roman Catholic Church ceremonial. Southern States first began the secular celebration of December 25th with feasting, drinking, dancing, gambling, hunting, fishing and socializing. It later became an American public holiday at the initiation of banks and businesses and our biggest commercial holiday.
American Christianities commemorate the fictitious birth date of a foreign Jewish figure from Semitic antiquity named Yeshua ben Yosef (aka: Jesus). The day, month or year of birth is not known. It was celebrated at different times for 300 years until a 4th Century Roman Catholic pope set it on December 25 to co-opt the pagan winter solstice festival celebrated throughout Europe and designated December 25th centuries earlier by Roman Emperor Julius Caesar. There are three different biblical birth stories (Matthew 1-2; Luke 1-2; Revelation 12).
Saint Nicholas was a 4th Century Eastern Orthodox bishop in Asia and gift giver to children. His December 6th festival day was a holiday dedicated to children. He was recreated as our secular Santa Clause and the date changed to December 25th. This was the genesis for our secular gift-giving tradition.
The term “Xmas” is not sacrilegious, does not replace Christ with an English “X” and does not remove Christ from Christmas. Those who claim otherwise are ignorant of Christian history. “Xmas” originated in the early Christian church as an acceptable abbreviation for Christmas because the New Testament was written in ancient Greek and its letter for Christ was “X”. The Greek letter “X” is deeply rooted in Christianity and has been used as a sacred Christ symbol for centuries by Christian churches.
Knowledge of historical facts about the winter holiday season provides wisdom, insight and perspective. “Facts do not cease to exist because they are ignored” as philosopher Aldous Huxley wisely wrote.
Every member of the American military takes the sworn oath to support, defend and bear true faith and allegiance to the United States Constitution. Fidelity to the secular Constitution is the foundation of American military service. We are one nation under the Constitution and it is the Constitution in which we must trust.
The Constitution, Department of Defense directives, Department of Veteran Affairs directives and Armed Forces regulations prohibit endorsing a religion and require neutrality regarding religion (neither pro-religion nor anti-religion but religion-neutral). At military installations and facilities during this winter holiday season, religious displays and activities are authorized only at military chapels.
Our American military is composed of men and women of different faiths, beliefs, cultures, religions, traditions and ethnic origins. At all times and especially during this winter holiday season, it is incumbent on military superiors (i.e. officers and non-commissioned officers) to promote the peace and goodwill of inclusiveness which enhances morale and prevent the badwill of exclusiveness which diminishes morale.
Respect for all Americans and their traditions fosters seasonal peace and goodwill. Peacemakers and goodwillers care about fellow Americans, welcome all holiday traditions, accept human belief diversity and avoid publicly imposing their private beliefs on others. Peacebreakers and badwillers do not. More respectful inclusiveness and less disrespectful exclusiveness will ensure peace and goodwill for all during this winter holiday season.
Happy Holiday Trails!
John Compere
Brigadier General, US Army (Retired)
Disabled American Veteran (Vietnam Era)
Board Member, Military Religious Freedom Foundation
Texas rancher
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Hey General Halfwit its MERRY CHRISTMAS. Keep the CHRIST in Christmas.
By the way GENERAL it’s “Santa Claus” not “Santa Clause” learn to spell.
Thank you John for your thoughtful essay on this holiday which means so much to so many humans on the planet. I guess there is something to be said for the idea of humans sharing a recalled memory from way back in history of nights seeming to never end, the cold gathering closer. We survived those long nights with community, shared foods, and a warm fire. Hard to miss the connection from there/then to here/now.
So, onto our troll aka the old soldier who doesn’t support the MRFF but still manages to make a comment at least once a week. Obsessed much?
Hey you old fart – it’s Happy Holidays because in December humanity celebrates Christmas, Hanukkah, Bodhi Day, Kwanzaa, Saint Nicholas Day, Yule, Immaculate Conception Day, Day of the Virgin of Guadalupe, Posadas navidenas, New Years Eve, Saint Stephen’s Day, Winter Solstice, Boxing Day, Omisoka, Nativity of Mary, Holy Innocents Day, and Saint Lucy’s Day.
How absolutely narcissistic of the old soldier without a presumed gender to believe there is only one holiday this month. Well, of course they do. They are an avowed and self identifying Nat-C. It’s in their DNA to think they are the be all and end all of everything in the Universe.
OOOooooo – bonus round. Since the old fart is correcting spelling errors then their posts are open for the same treatment. Can’t wait. I’ve my dictionary at the ready and my mom on speed dial for any grammar issues. I need the life line because in my misspent youth I flunked English grammar (twice). I’ve accepted there are some things I will never understand.
Very well said BG Compere!
I’m kind of with the old schooler a bit in terms of keeping the “X” in Xmas, that is, the function of X, f(x), to celebrate the reason for the season, the birth of Sir Isaac Newton! You know, the inventor of the calculus.
In elementary quadratic calculus, the first derivative of Christianity yields the velocity of the Old Soldier (extremely slow, you don’t really need calculus, just read his posts), and the 2nd derivative gets you the Old Soldier off his meds! The 2nd derivative being a constant for a quadratic, the Old Soldier constantly wrong – about everything, myopic magical mindfulness – I’m being generous.
Set the 1st derivative equal to zero and solve and you get the tangent line of his Christian dogma coincident to intellectual capacity. If it were a business model I’d say, yeah, time to shut down! Revenues no longer contributing to fixed costs :-)
Merry f(X)MAS! Thank you Sir Isaac!
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