No more shopping days 'til Christmas
A couple of weeks ago I heard a story on NPR about Christmas shopping and "blue laws" in South Carolina. For those who might not know, back in the day, practically no retail stores were allowed to open on Sundays, and the laws which prohibited such retail activity were known as "blue laws." Today, there are few blue laws still in existence--except in South Carolina. The NPR story explained that each county in South Carolina is responsible for the creation and enforcement of blue laws within its boundaries. This year, retailers in certain counties were seeking to have those counties temporarily suspend the blue laws. The reason was that a potentially big shopping day, Christmas Eve, fell on a Sunday. The retailers did not want to lose sales to stores in other counties which either had no blue laws or had already suspended them for that day.
My first reaction to this story was "Here's another example of why South Carolina is the most right-wing conservative state in the country." Then almost immediately, I remembered a paper I wrote in college, and that caused me to want to side with the South Carolina blue law counties. The topic of my paper was how Easter was celebrated in Dallas from 1886-1900. The paper was a primary source research project, and my primary source was the Dallas Morning News. Going in, the only bit of knowledge I had was that the date of Easter varies within an approximately five-week period. In order to conduct my research, I had to go through lots of microfilm, looking at each page of each paper from that five-week period for fifteen years. While this was tedious, it proved to be enlightening in a way that surprised and saddened me. Early on, there was very little mention of Easter, and all of the items in the paper concerned church services--where, when, and sometimes who would be presiding. Moreover, those items would appear no sooner than a day or two before the scheduled services, and they would be brief and listed all on the same page of the paper--and usually would not even take up the entire page. And then a change began. Soon there were notices of a few Easter parades, and then within a span of a few years, the emphasis was no longer on the church services. There were advertisements for Easter clothes, and the ads started appearing first about a week before Easter, then two weeks, then three. The ads quickly became larger than the church announcements, and they were in almost every section of the paper. Next came advertisements for Easter candy, soon followed by advertisements for...toys. By 1900, almost all the announcements of church services on Easter were gone from the paper. It was shocking to me to see how quickly and how completely what was supposed to be one of the most holy of celebrations was transformed to utter commercialism without regard to its true meaning.
And that was in the latter years of the 19th Century. It does not even compare to what Christmas has become in the 21st Century. In some places, Christmas promotions are going up even before Halloween! Having Libertarian, free-market leanings, I am not anti-commercialism. However, since I also have spiritual leanings, I am against a complete abandonment of the "reason for the season." And I have seen very little in the public square about the message of Christmas--which, by the way is not meant just for Christians, but I'll get to that later. Indeed, one TV commercial I saw shortly before Thanksgiving drove this point home for me. This commercial was a local Wichita Falls commercial. It was for a business, and the entire commercial was the owner of the business reminding everyone to keep in mind the true meaning of the Holiday season. It was the only commercial or other advertisement or public announcement I had seen or heard up to then delivering this message. The owner of the business is a man named Ken Knowles, and his company is Central Bail Bonds. Now, this is not in any way intended to slight Mr. Knowles. He is a good man, and he is completely sincere, and I am thankful that he made that commercial. I just found it ironic that instead of a church, or some charitable group, or a group of churches, charitable organizations, or even retail businesses did not choose to deliver this message, and instead the one person who did is a bail bondsman.
It would be nice if more was done to convey the Christmas message. As I said, that message is not just for Christians. Part of that message is "Peace on earth, good will toward men," as in peace for the ENTIRE world and good will for ALL people. The message is not just for Christians. At the time of Jesus's birth, there was no such thing as Christianity. Jesus was born a Jew. His parents were Jews. The Wise Men came from afar and were not Jews. The angels did not say that the blessings of the event were meant for only one group or another. No, the Christmas message--the "reason for the season"--knows no limits based on religion or any other characteristic. It is a wonderful message, and yet it would be almost lost in the crush of shopping and commercialism were it not for a few people like a bail bondsman in Wichita Falls, Texas.
Which brings me back to South Carolina. The decision by some counties there not to suspend their blue laws on the one hand seems like a stubborn refusal to come into the modern age, but on the other hand, it is nice to see someone standing up to the crass spectacle that has become Christmas in our society. And while I am still not sure how I ultimately feel about this blue law issue, it certainly has caused me to focus on what Christmas is supposed to be about.
Peace on earth, good will to all.
Merry Christmas.
My first reaction to this story was "Here's another example of why South Carolina is the most right-wing conservative state in the country." Then almost immediately, I remembered a paper I wrote in college, and that caused me to want to side with the South Carolina blue law counties. The topic of my paper was how Easter was celebrated in Dallas from 1886-1900. The paper was a primary source research project, and my primary source was the Dallas Morning News. Going in, the only bit of knowledge I had was that the date of Easter varies within an approximately five-week period. In order to conduct my research, I had to go through lots of microfilm, looking at each page of each paper from that five-week period for fifteen years. While this was tedious, it proved to be enlightening in a way that surprised and saddened me. Early on, there was very little mention of Easter, and all of the items in the paper concerned church services--where, when, and sometimes who would be presiding. Moreover, those items would appear no sooner than a day or two before the scheduled services, and they would be brief and listed all on the same page of the paper--and usually would not even take up the entire page. And then a change began. Soon there were notices of a few Easter parades, and then within a span of a few years, the emphasis was no longer on the church services. There were advertisements for Easter clothes, and the ads started appearing first about a week before Easter, then two weeks, then three. The ads quickly became larger than the church announcements, and they were in almost every section of the paper. Next came advertisements for Easter candy, soon followed by advertisements for...toys. By 1900, almost all the announcements of church services on Easter were gone from the paper. It was shocking to me to see how quickly and how completely what was supposed to be one of the most holy of celebrations was transformed to utter commercialism without regard to its true meaning.
And that was in the latter years of the 19th Century. It does not even compare to what Christmas has become in the 21st Century. In some places, Christmas promotions are going up even before Halloween! Having Libertarian, free-market leanings, I am not anti-commercialism. However, since I also have spiritual leanings, I am against a complete abandonment of the "reason for the season." And I have seen very little in the public square about the message of Christmas--which, by the way is not meant just for Christians, but I'll get to that later. Indeed, one TV commercial I saw shortly before Thanksgiving drove this point home for me. This commercial was a local Wichita Falls commercial. It was for a business, and the entire commercial was the owner of the business reminding everyone to keep in mind the true meaning of the Holiday season. It was the only commercial or other advertisement or public announcement I had seen or heard up to then delivering this message. The owner of the business is a man named Ken Knowles, and his company is Central Bail Bonds. Now, this is not in any way intended to slight Mr. Knowles. He is a good man, and he is completely sincere, and I am thankful that he made that commercial. I just found it ironic that instead of a church, or some charitable group, or a group of churches, charitable organizations, or even retail businesses did not choose to deliver this message, and instead the one person who did is a bail bondsman.
It would be nice if more was done to convey the Christmas message. As I said, that message is not just for Christians. Part of that message is "Peace on earth, good will toward men," as in peace for the ENTIRE world and good will for ALL people. The message is not just for Christians. At the time of Jesus's birth, there was no such thing as Christianity. Jesus was born a Jew. His parents were Jews. The Wise Men came from afar and were not Jews. The angels did not say that the blessings of the event were meant for only one group or another. No, the Christmas message--the "reason for the season"--knows no limits based on religion or any other characteristic. It is a wonderful message, and yet it would be almost lost in the crush of shopping and commercialism were it not for a few people like a bail bondsman in Wichita Falls, Texas.
Which brings me back to South Carolina. The decision by some counties there not to suspend their blue laws on the one hand seems like a stubborn refusal to come into the modern age, but on the other hand, it is nice to see someone standing up to the crass spectacle that has become Christmas in our society. And while I am still not sure how I ultimately feel about this blue law issue, it certainly has caused me to focus on what Christmas is supposed to be about.
Peace on earth, good will to all.
Merry Christmas.
posted by WCharles @ 12/25/2006 12:34:00 PM
1 Comments:
Interesting conundrum you address. We want our liberties and freedom to do whatever we want, whenever we want. But, then when we get it, we don't always like the results. Unintended consequences.
Then to make matters worse, we have legal beagles who push to remove all vestiges of Christianity from the public square for fear of offending someone or because in their view it is establishing a state religion. School children can no longer sing Christmas carols or put up Christmas decorations because of the religious establishment fear. Everything must be secularized.
Then we wonder why people lose sight of the true meaning of Christmas.
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