To those of

us who thought Christmas was too commercialized before,

there's no doubt that the phenomenon has set a record in

this last year of the 1900s.

Blame it on

the economy. It's the best it's ever been, and we're all

beginning to expect a higher level of giving, a higher

level of spending, a higher level of getting.

Snob appeal

is rampant. Collectibles are commanding huge prices for

no other reason than that collectors want to be able to

boast to other collectors that they have the latest, most

popular, least available.

The parties

are more lavish, the fake Christmas trees more lifelike

and sophisticated, the red and green party clothes finer

and their designers more in vogue.

And the oil

crisis of the `70s is a dim, distant nightmare. The

lights are plentiful and bright, multicolored and white,

inside and out, on businesses and private homes.

You take

the kids on a nice, old-fashioned hay ride and the only

thing old-fashioned is the hay. You fork over eight or

ten bucks per child, then at the end you pay another

three or four per child for the privilege of

participating in a marshmallow roast.

We in the

newspaper business certainly can't point any fingers.

Newspapers and retail stores are like Native Americans

and buffalo. We follow the herd, and since Christmas is

their time to feed, it's also ours.

I was

trying to get in the last of my shopping the other day,

and was a bit frustrated by the traffic. I pulled into

one of the big box shopping centers to pick up a picture

frame for one person's gift, with the idea of continuing

on to the mall. There would be more choices of clothing

stores there, I reasoned, and I could wander from store

to store looking for just the right blouse or sweater for

my mom.

But the

traffic was so thick that it was going to take probably a

half hour to go the remaining two miles to the mall, so I

picked up my picture frame at the home style store, and

then ducked next door into one of only two clothing

stores in the big box center, just to see what they might

have.

I walked in

the door and was amazed to find just the thing, a

beautiful blazer, on sale, perfectly suited to Mother.

The store's arranger had placed it on the very first

rack, not six inches inside the door, and the first one

on the rack was the right size.

I reached

into my pocket and happily handed the clerk some of the

dollars that this booming economy and the retail

community had deposited there, tickled down to my toes to

have found the right gift.

Sure,

Christmas can be too commercial. But whether it is or it

isn't is really up to you and me, isn't it? It's what's

in our hearts, not what's in our wallets, that makes

Christmas what it is.

And, of

course, often lost in the noise of the two-for-one sales

and the disco lights competition between neighbors is the

central theme, the celebration of the birth of Jesus, the

Christ.

But I

maintain that criticizing "the world" for

drowning out the true meaning of Christmas with

gift-giving and gift-getting, parties and merriment is a

waste of breath. Better to use that breath singing

praises than cursing those who don't.

As an

aside, I would really love to see Christians get together

and come up with a reasonably accurate estimate as to

when Christ really made his immaculate entrance into the

world, and celebrate the event closer to that time. Best

guesses by experts are that it was sometime in June or

July, I've read.

Christians

started celebrating Christmas in the winter to appease

newly converted Greeks, Romans and Anglo Saxons, who

wanted to continue their previous religious traditions of

merrymaking around the time of winter solstice.

No reason

we couldn't separate by a few months the sacred from the

profane in this day and age.

But as long

as we continue to wrap it all into one big old warm,

fuzzy blanket, it's still up to those who believe in

Jesus to honor him and to give him first place at

Christmas, and all the time.

Hope you

and yours have a blessed Christmas.