What Happened to Christmas?

Whatever happened to Christmas? I've been pondering this for a while now and only recently decided to put up a blog entry about it because I googled everything else on the subject and nothing really clicked with me. I'm specifically asking what happened to the Christmas I grew up with. You see, I was born in the year an artificial heart was first installed in Texas. The Vietnam War escalated to 250,000 US troops. The Doors released their self-titled album. Ironically, it was also the year Anton LaVey founded the Church of Satan in San Francisco. That wasn't any real surprise though. Peace, Love and Hippie Snap were in full swing baby! It was ALL GOOD! As was CHRISTMAS. Ahhh...Christmas, when it was not a lame, awful attempt to imitate a "Classic Christmas" because we were still putting the final touches on what would come to be known as a "Classic Christmas". Rankin/Bass's "Rudolph", "Little Drummer Boy", "Frosty", "Santa Claus Comin' to Town" and "Year Without A Santa" were ALL NEW!!! Not just new to me but NEW! We had Christmas finely honed to a relatively short shopping season followed by elaborate decorations and ceremonies that ended with a warm bonding that left an almost blinding glow for the next 354 days, when we'd do it all over again. It was MAGIC.

It didn't end there though. Twenty years later, Christmas was still a rockin' good time. Bruce Springsteen's "Santa Claus is Comin' To Town" would become a staple of Christmas radio tunes pretty much throughout the 80s. Volume 1 of "A Very Special Christmas" was released, containing the wonderful "Christmas in Hollis" tune from Run D.M.C. The college radio station I worked at had to set aside an entire shelf for all of the new Chrismas LPs we had coming in. It was still MAGIC!! One of my favorite memories from that time was when I got to set up my first tree in my first apartment with lots and lots of trimmings I'd inherited from generations of revellers. We had a party that night where everyone got so drunk and high that people were still being pulled out of the snow banks the next morning! Oh my, those were good times. Good times and noodle salad.

Then, without warning, something....something died. There hadn't been any new, memorable Christmas TV specials for a decade. The Christmas music recordings dried up. Some retail stores began planning their ENTIRE YEAR around Christmas! Halloween decorations were quickly replaced with Christmas ones - Thanksgiving seemed to fall entirely off the radar. The holidays were no longer wonderful and joyous and precious with butterflies in your stomach from December 1st until Christmas Day...they just became tedious and repetitious and...boring.

WHAT HAPPENED TO CHRISTMAS???!!!

Now I realize some of this is simply the natural aging process. That old playground looks a lot smaller than it used to. The winters are definitely longer. Time seems to be speeding up and I mean a LOT. I've had to replace my inner child with 2 real children of my own. That's where all this musing over Christmas began however, with my children. I so desperately want them to remember it as I do but they never will. They did for a very short while as we played all our old VHS tapes with the classic TV specials and all the old tunes. Kids are much more media savvy now though and quickly realize those were "played" in every sense of the word. The nail in the coffin however was a complete inability to source anything NEW to replace our "old" Christmas with. Christmas it seems is on life support....getting its last gasp of breath from the parents who still remember what a real Christmas is supposed to look and feel like.

It's not genuine any more. There's no "spirit". There's no "joy". There's no "wonder" or "mystery" or "glow". There's just the PS3 and all the games the kids got bored with 3 days after they got them. Christmas is marked now by getting the big ticket items you've wanted or needed over the year. Instead of just going out and buying them when you need them, you set aside a little money here and there so they're "special" when you get them. When I was a kid, the best present you could get was "the cigarette case". It was a fake gold cigarette case my great aunt bought for her sister who didn't even smoke. It was a joke gift. Probably cost a nickle or even a penny when it was first bought. It arrived in refrigerator boxes stuffed with news paper or naughty books with the pages hollowed out to stash the cigarette case and all other manner of subterfuge. We all turned blue holding our breath, waiting to see who would finally find it that year. Alas even that has become lost...in time. There are no more "precious" memories, just ingenuine nonsense and abject greed. So when a bunch of retail chains recently went under because they couldn't get loans to pay for their "just in time" Christmas inventory, which would get them through all of next year...I shed not one tear. I didn't mourn the jobs lost or anything else, I even laughed out loud for awhile. It was sweet revenge for a turn of events that should have shocked the Western World. No tears were shed for the end of Christmas and here we are today.

Is it just me that's noticed this? Is it a sign of normal aging that everyone has gone through since Christ died on the cross? Is it just a generational thing? Or did Christmas actually die?