Happy Feast of St. Nicholas

No, not this one:

This one:

That's right kiddies, in the old days, when Christianity, and more to the point Catholicism, pervaded so much of culture and daily life. today was a special day.  Of course the slow development of Christmas in modern times, the influence of Protestantism, the rise of Sts. Macy, Roebuck and Walmart all impacted the way the holiday formerly known as C-----mas is now celebrated; which if some have their way, I can't help but believe will be not at all.*

I know, I know.  There are some pagan elements in the way Christmas is celebrated.  I know that there have always been non-religious elements, borrowed from culture and society, that have rubbed elbows with the more Christ centered meaning of the holidays.  I also know that, until the last few hundred years, the Christmas Season included much more than a single day on the 25th, followed by sales and removal of decorations from the stores (what am I thinking?  That starts now by around the 23rd).

But it can't be argued that somehow, in some way, the Protestant tradition of removing as much of that old papist trapping and keeping the bare bones minimum from the historic Catholic calendar, has come around and bit us all in the rear.  Perhaps spreading things out again, getting back in touch with the Church's take on the season (it's Advent by the way, not Christmas), could be a step in the right direction.  You never know.

*The article in question was a rather lame article.  Except for a few stats early on and some TV ratings (which might not account for the number of households who prefer to buy their specials on DVD or Blueray, rather than chance the possible sex saturated commercial preceding Linus's exposition of the meaning of Christmas), there's not much to back up the idea that these 'traditions' are fading.  It looked more to me like a person who was hoping we could go green, ditch all this worthless meaning of Christmas garbage, including but not limited to this whole family and friends stuff, and get to the 'real' meaning of Christmas - soon to be found on the latest Wall Street ticker.