I Love the Commercialism of Christmas

No Joke--No Hidden Meaning

I really love it. Mall parking lots clogged with car headlights like a starry night sky in the country. Inane, convivial music wafting over hordes of harried, hopeful, hesitantly happy holiday hunters. Shop 'til you're top-heavy, arms full of packages, box-crammed plastic bags dangling from every finger.

Sure, it's an ordeal. Sure, I procrastinate every year. (As of this writing--Dec 21--I still haven't gotten Carol-Jean a "main" present yet. So I won't be forwarding this to her--and you are sworn to secrecy!) Sure, I spend in December, then spend January through October paying off the credit cards. (Sure, I talk to myself like a pit bull puppy at obedience school: Bad boy, bad prosperity teacher--shame on you!) But I don't care.

Do you hear that, world? I don't care!

I love this inane, over-rated, superficial, commercialized hollow-day like Jesus must have loved little children and the first sunshine on Easter morning. For three reasons.

1) Christmas gives us an excuse to move closer to people. Although I love ideas--God knows you realize that, being a reader of this column--even the best ideas can only get you to the threshold of a happy life. We need not denigrate the intellect in order to say that humanity shall not live by thoughts alone; good relationships are just as important as good ideas. Okay...maybe more important. But good relationships almost always proceed from a base of goodf ideas about life, God, values, the world, self-esteem, etc.

Singer Winona Ryder discovered that long ago. A few years back, Ms. Ryder was sentenced to community service and a fine for shoplifting. Her problems didn't start there. Listen to what she says about her early life and the need for healthy relationships:

"When I was 18, I was driving around at two in the morning, completely crying and alone and scared. I drove by this magazine stand that had this Rolling Stone that I was on the cover of, and it said, 'Winona Ryder: The Luckiest Girl in the World.' And there I was feeling more alone than I ever had." [1]

Christmas crowds us, badgers us, makes us open our sacks and hand tokens of love to people we spend too much time avoiding. Christmas makes us vulnerable, duty-bound to honor the possible...we could possibly be friends...we could possibly work together without in-fighting or envy...we could possibly get along, maybe even like each other. Oh, of course, our cynical patterns of error-belief try to tell us it won't happen. But for one brief shining moment, we allow ourselves to pretend it is all so...possible.

2) Christmas changes everybody's (or most people's) internal thermometer to "warm-up" setting.

Some people say they see auras. Mine has been described as several colors by several different people; I don't know what that means. Either the seers are not seeing the same thing, or my spiritual energy has a chameleon setting. Whatever.

Christmas, however, transforms the psychological world of humanity like a wave of many colors, sweeping across the mindscape to warm the human psyche. Sure, it stresses people and drives some into the cold of despair...but the warm, soothing default for the season still plays in the background from every station in the inter-locking network of endless Christmas music: Do you hear what I hear? Joy to the world! Have yourself a Merry Little Christmas! I'll Be Home...if only in my dreams...

3) Christmas gives us an excuse to hope. All right--maybe the angels decorating the mall were made in a Shanghai sweat shop and most of the gifts won't survive to Valentine's Day, so what? Do you remember that old truism, "It's the thought that counts..."? Well, as a Unity minister, I now realize the text should be edited to read: "It's the THINKING that counts!"

"Fighting the crowds" can be read as "mingling with the holiday throngs," while those "harried chores" and "endless items to cross off lists," can just as easily be read as "joyful preparations" and "lots of fun stuff to do."

(Stop muttering those naughty words. I'm just trying to work a mental treatment here...)

Even if it sounds idealistic--or maybe because of it--Christmas gives humanity an opportunity to pause and believe, if only for a little while, that "peace on earth and goodwill" are actually possible. For one brief shining moment, heaven touches earth.

Bless the Sacred Malls: May their tribe increase!

So, if you haven't been to a crowded shopping space yet this year--or if you've been putting off the last minute gifts and are now wondering how late Wal-Mart stays open Christmas Eve, or if you just want to go window-gazing again--let me suggest a radical departure: Bless the mall! See the shopping centers as holy ground. Go to the crowded places and say a silent prayer, that all these people may have someone to give and receive love, that the spirit of prosperity may spread across the human species, that the true gift of Christmas may be born in everyone's heart.

If the above does not work to raise your prosperity consciousness, buy a nice gift and send it to yourself...*


*[Or send a tax-deductible Christmas Gift donation to Unity Institute, Attn: Ministerial Scholarships, 1901 NW Blue Parkway, Unity Village, MO 64065-0001.)

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[1] Winona Ryder, quoted by Plugged In, Vol. 6, no. 4 (April 2001).