En Garde in the bunker…
Let me begin my story of Trump & ‘merry’ being put back in Christmas … Long, long eons ago in the misty clouds of Father Time, yours truly blew the gasket on whether Santa Claus was real or imagined. After all, a curious and excitable 5-year-old (or thereabouts) playing ‘soldier’ (it was after all, a mere 3 years after the end of WWII) slid under the big bed of the parents and witnessed the hidden spoil gathered there in time for Christmas. The original intent was to capture Father Time before he ran out of it, and lo and behold he was found robbing Santa of all his goodies!
Well, to one adventuresome tod, Christmas came early that year! More’s the thanks that he didn’t get punished for it. But the rig was up of course.
In a roundabout way, Santa Clause was forever banned if you will from the home of my early years, albeit I was lectured to not let the cat out of the bag and to just go along with the ruse, being a good tale to tell of course!
As J.T.Young puts it in American Spectator: ‘Christmas renews a long-standing conflict over the holiday. It is religious versus secular. It is spiritual versus commercial. It is serious versus frivolous. It is a profound mistake to see the contrast as meaningless’.
‘Christians have long complained their holiday has been hijacked. They see Christmas increasingly transformed from religious to retail. Such attempts to drive them from their territory have gone from implicit to explicit. A growing segment now oppose Christians intruding on their secular celebration’.
‘This contrast is embodied in Jesus Christ and Santa Claus. Despite Jesus being intimately approachable, as God deigning to become human, he is inaccessible to those determined to excise religion from Christmas. In contrast, Santa has been so thoroughly handled by the secular sect that every aspect of religion has been sanded away’.[end]
Not to digress, but Jesus IS the gift. The real Christmas is about the real Christ who it can be said of Him:
1. The birth that He had equipped Him for the life that He lived.
2. The sinless life that He lived qualified Him for the vicarious death that He died.
3. His temporary death makes available to us the life that He gives.
R. Emmett Tyrrell, Jr., founder and editor of American Spectator puts it this way: ‘Merry Christmas, America’…
Washington
What do you make of it? Merry Christmas greetings have been assaulting me from every corner. The assaults began about two weeks ago. I think I was in a CVS store buying aspirin for a splitting headache. No, possibly it was at the dry cleaners, and I was picking up a sweater. The person at the counter let fall a “Merry Christmas.” I, of course, reciprocated, and hurried off. I would have thought nothing of it, but it has continued for two weeks. Will it even continue after today, Christmas Day? What does it mean?
In recent years I have been the initiator of the Merry Christmas greeting. Admittedly I initiated the seasonal greeting not out of piety but out of l’audace. Usually, that is, out of l’audace, because the politically correct bullies had taken the joy out of the season. They had made it controversial to wish my fellow Americano “Merry Christmas.” It had now become the progressive thing to say “Holiday Greetings,” or “Seasonal Greetings,” or “Have a Good One.” Somewhat like the genderless toilet, a traditional greeting became fraught with ideological content. Well, the heck with that. I began wishing ordinary Americanos a hearty “Merry Christmas.” And now this year they are preemptively wishing me a hearty “Merry Christmas.” Some even throw in a “Happy New Year.”
I think his year’s turnaround actually began in November with Thanksgiving. Of a sudden, I noticed scores of fellow Americans exchanging “Happy Thanksgiving” to each other. No one was offended. No feelings were hurt. No one uttered a testimonial to the fate of turkeys, the fate of Sitting Bull, or why we ought to give California back to the Mexicans. Though on that last item I am giving serious thought to returning California to the Mexicans, if they promise to take Hollywood first.[-]
[+] … Now, of course, with Pope Francis’ Walmartizing the Catholic liturgy, my guess is that Mencken would give up even on the Catholics. Yet 20 years ago I think my friends could have made the case for even agnostics accepting Christ in Christmas. Now they might be making the case again. What has happened? Well, about 2016 there came along this political maverick, Donald Trump, and he noticed that political correctness was robbing much of American life of things Americans found reassuring, of traditional things, for instance, of Christ at Christmastime.
Donald Trump with his prevenient sense for politics, started saying “Merry Christmas” at the appropriate time, and many Americas were attracted to it and to him.
Full piece in link below…
Pres Trump and First Lady Christmas 2019…
As J.T.Young rounds it out: ‘We do enough good — enough to cancel out our bad — and that suffices. In such a misconception, God is an omniscient and lenient accountant. If we just finish in the black in his final tally, we will receive some form of blissful eternity. We will have earned it, after all’.
‘The seasonal juxtaposition between Jesus and Santa is far more than just religious versus secular. It is one that goes to humanity’s relationship with God. It is one involving faith in God, resignation, and indebtedness versus faith in ourselves, and a self-salvation to which we feel entitled. Ultimately, it is the difference between making possible eternal life and making palatable terminal life. It is the difference between a transformational gift and transactional ones’.[end]
We Christians now have a life expressed to us from eternity, equipping us for the demands of living in this fallen creation. A proof of the accuracy of these verifiable facts is the destruction that comes into the lives of those that in their pride or ignorance ignore them. Fortunately these days, we have a president Donald J. Trump who is fully in tune with the way of our Creator.
Just like that 5-year-old soldier-adventurer from long ago who discovered the secret under the big bed of spoil hidden there in time for Christmas. Just how much more ‘spoil’ has Christ got hidden for those who wish to seek? Tons of it. Absolutely TONS!
MERRY CHRISTMAS to all you adventure-seekers – Donald J. Trump among them.
And on that note, time for today’s MAGA Pill – President Donald J. Trump – MAGA! KAG!
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R.Emmett Tyrrell, Jr., American Spectator: Merry Christmas, America
J.T.Young, American Spectator: Christmas Gifts: Transformational vs Transactional
