Monday, December 15, 2008

Satan's sleigh bells

My latest American Spectator column:
Mike Huckabee was doing an audience-participation segment on his Fox News Channel program last week when he was asked to name his favorite Christmas carol. "Hark, the Herald Angels Sing," he answered. Then he asked his questioner to name her favorite Christmas carol.
"Winter Wonderland!" she answered cheerfully.
Huckabee smiled and said he liked the song, too. But surely the former Baptist minister must have been thinking the same thing I was thinking: "Winter Wonderland" is not a Christmas carol.
There is not a single reference to Christmas in the entire song. Snow, yes. Sleigh bells, yes. Christmas, no. Written in 1934 by Richard Smith and Felix Bernard, "Winter Wonderland" is a typical example of 20th-century "holiday" songs that have nothing to do with Christmas.
Please read the whole thing.

2 comments:

  1. I must be a mushie. Silent Night is my favorite... For the non-carol carols, Blue Christmas would be my pick.

    ReplyDelete
  2. I'm of the opinion that most of us actually celebrate two different holidays on and surrounding December 25th.

    One, "American Christmas" is filled with Santa, reindeer, cheesy movies, cookies, and if I'm lucky, a fresh white blanket of snow on Christmas morning.

    And, two, "Christian Christmas" celebrates the incarnation of my Savior, "who, though he was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, but made himself nothing, taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men. And being found in human form, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross."

    Although I draw a sharp distinction between the two in my mind, I delight in both. The former offers glimpses of fun though a cold period without much sunlight. The later offers a chance to reflect on a truly magnificent event that changed the world and countless lives forever.

    So - I wish you both a very merry "oogedy boogedy" Christmas full of thoughts of Satan, sin and (most importantly!) salvation and a very merry ACLU-approved American Christmas!

    ReplyDelete