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I'm on vacation in North Carolina this week.

No L.  George Fox referred to it as "the time called Christmas"¹ and Spurgeon called it "the present ecclesiastical arrangement called Christmas."² It isn't that they were necessarily contemptuous of the Advent season, but they recognized, each in his own way, that the time, the arrangement, is really an empty tradition, incapable of carrying Christ throughout the feasting, gifting, and tipsy joy, nor for encouraging one to maintain a righteous frame of mind at least until the Easter season.

As for me, I have never had a "superstitious regard" for this time and season, but this is the first year I've finally been able to separate Christmas from Christ in any really meaningful sense. In previous years, I could mark the distinction very clearly, even as I complained rancorously about the secularization of this celebration of Jesus' birth, but I still trudged through it as if I had no choice in the matter. Well, this year I've made my choice and I've succumbed to the brute fact that there isn't anything I can do to keep Christ in what is merely another visible token of cultural Christianity, entirely subsumed as it has been within the capitalist web of profligate purchasing. It isn't that I'm insensitive to the lure of the marketplace or to the trappings of this Yuletide: I've simply been able to keep them entirely separate from Jesus this year. Christmas is just another made-up holiday—like Valentine's Day, Halloween, Kwanzaa, and Talk Like a Pirate Day.

I did send out one Christmas card, but I wanted to do that and it was appropriate for the person and for the time, but everyone else I know is getting a phone call, a personal visit, or something else, as may be appropriate. My gift-giving, such as it is, has been kept distinct from Christmas day, and I think now I like the freedom of giving without being compelled to do it and without needing a timetable for doing so. Paul said: "Each man should give what he has decided in his heart to give, not reluctantly or under compulsion, for God loves a cheerful giver" [2 Cor 9:7]. And Robert Barclay wrote (in his Apology):

So may every day for us—for you and for me—be a celebration of Christ's birth. Merry Christmas!

1.  Autobiography of George Fox, Chapter I.
2.  "Joy Born at Bethlehem." A Sermon (No. 1026) Delivered on Lord's-Day Morning, December 24th, 1871, by C.H. Spurgeon, at the Metropolitan Tabernacle, Newington.
3.  From Barclay's Apology in Plain English, ed. Dean Freiday (Barclay Press, 1967). Prop. XI, 10: "And man being thus stated, the little Seed of Righteousness, which God hath planted in his Soul, and Christ hath purchased for him, even the measure of Grace and Life, (which is burthened and crucified by man's natural thoughts and imaginations) receives a place to arise, and becometh a holy Birth and geniture in man; and is that Divine Air, in and by which man's Soul and Spirit comes to be leavened: And by Waiting herein he comes to be accepted in the sight of God, to stand in his presence, hear his Voice, and observe the motions of his Holy Spirit. And so man's place is, to Wait in this: and as hereby there are any Objects presented to his mind concerning God, or things relating to Religion, his Soul may be exercised in them without hurt, and to the great profit both of himself and others; because those things have their rise not from his own Will, but from God's Spirit. And therefore as in the arisings and movings of this his mind is still to be exercised in thinking and meditating, so also in the more obvious acts of preaching and praying."