When Christmas goes horribly wrong

One from Clifton Healy. I’ll admit that when I was a kid, before I thought liturgically, I found it strange and wrong that we sang Christmas carols in church after the 25th December! Clifton is right of course:

Welcome to the pagan holiday that celebrates the sin of acquisitiveness and purposefully entices the passions. Of course, it attempts to hijack the Christian holiday first by celebrating it for four weeks prior to the Christian holiday itself...

But not long after learning the liturgical way from the tail-end of the old Episcopalianism I understood Advent. The secular world of course doesn’t and doesn’t care.

And another from my dear old enemies at Ship of Fools (warning: language). All true and Schadenfreude consolation to those of us who haven’t got family to go to but I still love this season even in its debased form. Still markedly Catholic (admittedly built upon natural religion — we know Jesus wasn’t born in December), when even hardshell Protestants go in for statuary of Our Lord, Our Lady and St Joseph. Et Verbum caro factum est.