The Crass Commercialization of Christmas

This holiday season, I've been to several church related functions. The first of which was my son Joshua's Madrigal feast. Josh is in the men's Ensemble at his high school, Mater Dei in Santa Ana California. For the Christmas concert, they held a Madrigal Feast at the Doubletree in Orange. it was quite an event. There was a king and Queen, a Court, and the common folk. Josh being a mere freshman, he served as commoner and in addition to the singing duties, he also was a food server. We were basically wined and dined for three hours that night and it was quite an experience.

The second Church related function was my niece and nephews Christmas Pageant. My niece Alexis, had a duet with another girl, and that is what I came to hear. The problem was, the parents and relatives at the Church, St. Edwards in Dana Point, California, seemed oblivious to the fact that it was a singing affair. The parents were to put it bluntly, rude, talking and jabbering on about such unnecessary nonsense as stereo systems and what their neighbors bought that it ruined it for me for the most part. When Alexis came up to the stage to sing, I just shhushed a bunch of people so I could hear her sing. They shut up at that point, but the point was they should have been enjoying the singing rather than worry about their neighbors. And on top of this, all things Church related, my brother in law mentioned to me that a few months ago, the church was asking if the congregation could dig a bit deeper into their wallets to support the church, and my brother in law had his suspicions about the request, which was confirmed a few weeks later when the Diocese of Orange settled a series of 87 sexual harassment lawsuits filed against the Diocese for more than $100 million. The whole thing that truly pisses me off about the whole thing is that they asked for more support, to make up for their years of denials, playing musical parishes with priests who should have been, at the least defrocked and banished from the church for their sexual misadventures, But the Church just moved them around and hence, the $100 million settlement.

This settlement dwarfs that of what the Diocese of Boston settled last year. The Diocese of Orange, which is probably like most dioceses around the world, engaged in denials when it came to sexual misdeeds of priests, and even high school teacher sexual misconduct (my son's high school had to deal with the fallout of a series of Orange County Register articles during the summer of 2003, dealing with a whole bunch of teachers alleged to have engaged in sexual activities with high school students during the 1970s to the 1990s.) What appears is that the Diocese again gave these people a way out without having law enforcement get involved. This kind of conduct, teachers having sex with underage students, if reported to law enforcement, would have resulted in jail time. I read in the paper just this week of a basketball coach at a public high school receiving 8 years in prison for having sex with a student over the course of two years.

But I digress and must get on topic, which is the crass commercialization of Christmas. For those of you who don't know, the United States of America is fast becoming un-united. Christian leaders in the south have advised their followers not to patronize stores that don't have merry Christmas signs in their displays or whose employees don't greet them Merry Christmas. it is truly sad when these religious freaks have to resort to this, this economic persecution. I mean, this is the United States of America, where religious beliefs, or lack of religious beliefs, is accepted. All faiths are supposed to be accepted here, and if there are those who would rather say Happy Holidays" than Merry Christmas, then they should be able to say Happy Holidays, rather than merry Christmas. This country is fast becoming the United States of Jesusland.