Defending Christmas

I posted this on facebook last year and felt it was worth revisiting...

It’s strangely interesting to watch Christmas evolve into something nearly unrecognizable. Each year, we as a society seem to take one more step away from the true meaning towards the politically correct atheistic/ agnostic “holiday season”. It has grown to the point where people feel self-conscious about saying “Merry Christmas” to others for fear of offending them. How long will it be until our calendars say “Festive Holiday” on December 25? Many people already refer to it as ‘Xmas’ (which drives me nuts).

Christmas is first and foremost the celebration and remembrance of the birth of Jesus Christ. That’s where it starts and ends.

Personally, I really don’t care that December 25th was once a Roman holiday celebrating the winter solstice and the Festival of Saturnalia. It could’ve been the Buldavian festival of the Holy Hippopotamus for all I care. What is important to me is what it is now, not what it was nearly 1700 years ago (it became Christmas sometime before 336 AD). We get to take one day to stop and think about Christ and what He did for us.

Whether or not you believe in Christ as the Son of God, a prophet, or just a wise teacher is up to you. I don’t believe that celebrating Christmas, or even calling it Christmas, detracts from anyone else’s experience or imposes a set of beliefs on anyone. I don’t feel threatened or that that I am being pressured into changing my beliefs when someone celebrates Hanukka. I’m secure enough in my own faith that I can respect and admire the beliefs and traditions of others.

In remembering the birth of Christ, we also remember His life, teachings, and example. But most of all we remember the sacrifice He made on our behalf in Gethsemane and on the cross. We remember how death is no longer the end, the resurrection of Christ means that we too will live again.

"Wherefore, how great the importance to make these things known unto the inhabitants of the earth, that they may know that there is no flesh that can dwell in the presence of God, save it be through the merits, and mercy, and grace of the Holy Messiah, who layeth down his life according to the flesh, and taketh it again by the power of the Spirit, that he may bring to pass the resurrection of the dead, being the first that should rise." (2 Nephi 2:8)

Do you remember when Christmas used to bring a feeling of goodwill to others? When people would give service to others just because it was Christmas? People wonder why “goodwill to men” is on the decline as the focus of the season moves further away from Christ. . .

I Hate Flying...

That’s not really true. I actually enjoy flying. I love the window seats, watching the take-off and landing (which is saying something for someone who really doesn’t like amusement park rides). One of the most spectacular experiences I’ve ever seen was on the flight from Denver, CO to Calgary when I got to watch a lightning storm from above the clouds. How cool was that… about five to ten minutes of flight-time, watching as the clouds lit up as the lightning flashed in and between the clouds. I wish I could’ve caught it on film. But I digress…

What I really hate is the whole airport experience. Pulling into the long-term parking, getting the ticket, checking the display which claims to list the empty parking spots on each level. I have yet to figure out how they determine the number of available spaces when the whole process is automated. Here's how my morning went...

P2: 31. I don’t know what they were actually counting, but it sure wasn’t available parking spaces. 31 out-of-province plates, maybe. Oh well, it’s only 7:05 AM, boarding doesn’t start until 7:30, which still leaves me time to get through security and find the gate. I’ve already checked in on-line and claimed my seat. The flight doesn’t even leave until 8:00…

P3 is for short-term parking, can't stop there.

P4: 42. Again, I’d like to find out one day just what exactly those numbers really represent. I’m pretty sure there wasn’t room for 42 pair of roller skates anywhere on that level. 7:10 AM, getting a little tight on time, but still have room.

P5: 38. “Wo unto the liar, for he shall be thrust down to hell!” (2 Nephi 9:34). I could’ve found 38 frolicking unicorns on that level before finding even 1 parking spot. 7:15 AM, mild panic is starting to creep in slowly. I get my hopes up when I see what looks like a few parking spaces down at the end of the row. As I’m almost ready to turn in and park, I see the “Reserved” signs. “Memo to me: maim you after my meeting…”

P6: 88. I drove around for about three minutes wondering if Indiana Jones himself could find parking in this airport before finally finding a spot (I only had to drive against two directional arrows to get it). 7:20, I really need to move to get to security, never mind through it…

7:25, waiting in line at the security entrance as some woman in front of me is extolling the virtues of her little shih-tzu (who will be travelling with her, on her lap) and how adorable it is. Two thoughts are screaming through my mind, trying desperately to be set free:

1. There’s no such thing as an “adorable” shih-tzu, and

2. You’d better pray you’re not on my flight, or I’ll do everyone a favor and strangle that thing right now. Sure, they might frown on it on the outside, but inside they’d be giving me high-fives and putting me on their Christmas card list.

7:30, I’m now in the actual security line. For once in my life, I actually pick the faster of the two lines. Every once in a while, karma throws me a bone before hitting me with it. The woman in front of me this time felt compelled to wait until she got to the conveyor belt before starting to unlace her knee-high boots. On the plus side, she was short and her knees were fairly low to the ground to start with, meaning fewer laces to untie. On the down-side, she was wearing a shirt that didn’t fit when she was standing up. Let’s just say everyone behind her got a good look at the “tramp stamp” (I think that’s a more politically correct term than “porn star birthmark”) on her lower back. I hope she had a trust-worthy tattoo artist, or those were probably Japanese symbols meaning “advertise here”.

7:45, final boarding call for WestJet flight 150. Yup, that’s me… frantically trying to stuff my laptop back in the bag as soon as I can grab it off the belt without getting in trouble from the friendly security agents (they were even less inclined to humor this morning than normal). Karma must’ve figured I’d suffered enough already because my gate was the closest to security, or she was just toying with me. If I was flying AirCanada, I wouldn’t have been worried at all. In fact, I would’ve stopped for breakfast and still have been early. That’s why I prefer not to fly on airlines run by the devil himself. But I’m flying WestJet and can already picture the gate attendant running down the loading ramp, pounding on the locked door on my behalf, begging them to let me on.

I came around the corner to the departure gate and there are still four people in line ahead of me, so karma was lulling me into a sense of false security. The guy ahead of me decides to wait until the gets to the gate attendant to realize he doesn’t have his boarding pass out and ready. Just when did you think you were going to need it, Sparky?? I wanted to ask him if that was his unattended baggage over by the washrooms, but again my sense of social conformity won out. I have GOT to get that fixed one of these days...

If this were a flight heading South instead of North, I would gladly go through all this and more. I would expect it as some sort of rite of passage initiation to a warmer climate. It would be as though karma was exacting a toll for leaving the cold and snow behind and trading it for sunshine and warmth, and it would still be a bargain. But flying to Grande Prairie?? It’s only -6C in Calgary and expected to go back into the double-digit plus side while I’m gone. After all, the Grande Prairie airport isn’t exactly O’Hare. You have to walk from the plane to the terminal. Outside. In the cold, and snow, and wind. I mentioned cold, right? At least someone had been out earlier to shovel a path from the portable stairs all the way to the terminal entrance. The problem being that it had been long enough for the wind to drift snow over much of the path. Not to beat a dead horse (and then poke it repeatedly with a stick), but this would not be a problem in Ari-freakin-zona.

And then, to top it all off, somewhere between security and the Grande Prairie airport I managed to lose my watch. I know I had it in the Calgary airport because I was frantically checking the time every 30 seconds. I’m pretty sure karma stole it just to prove a point. Well played karma, well played…