In a previous post about Lawrence Kansas, I mentioned the classic americana Christmas. I had heard on NPR that almost all of our Christmas songs, most of our Christmas classic movies and a lot of our traditions that we celebrate each year were created between 1940 and 1962. I know as well, that many neo conservative talk pundits like to make a big deal about keeping Christ in Christmas. What is remarkable to me it that they make such a big deal out of Christmas to begin with, while missing the most holy of Christian holidays -- holy week culminating with easter. Did you know, that most of the founding fathers of this country never celebrated or even marked Christmas? Did you ever wonder why Washington would have crossed the Deleware on Christmas to fight a victorious battle against the Hessian soldiers in New Jersey? It is because he and many of the patriots did not consider Christmas such a big deal. Christmas as we celebrate it is actually a relatively new invention, made mainly to keep our commercial enterprises in the black more than anything else. So, to truely keep the Christ in Christmas, it is what you do to meet your Christian obligations alive between now and Easter that is most important. The day after Christmas was Sunday this week. At our church, on Christmas Eve, the 4 PM mass was overflowing. The midnight mass was full, but not so much overflow. Sunday, the people who show up at church all the time were there. Easter day will be another overflow day. Between now and then, church will be it's normal self, with many empty pews. I'm not saying this to proclaim how much a superior christian I am to everyone else. Heck, if it weren't for my dedicated wife dragging me in every week, I'd probably go very little. However, in this season of "war on Christmas" I like to observe the hyperbole and hypocricy that goes into that. Also, I'd like to say, that in a city of beautiful and artfully designed churches, that the one that I attend, Our Lady of Sorrows Redemptorist Church on 33rd and Broadway, ranks up there as one of the most gorgeous churches.
In the many happy returns department, we returned to the J. C. Penny outlet in Overland Park to exchange some goods for bigger sizes (insert fat jokes here). I got a couple of snap shots with my new camera to see how it worked. The J. C. Penny outlet is sort of a grim ode to commercial efficiency incorporated mid-century googie space age modern elements. Something about a florescent windowless commercial interior says a lot about the day after Christmas to me.
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