Saint Nicholas, (a.k.a. Santa Claus, a.k.a. Sinterklaas, ) is most famous as the patron saint of children, but he is also the patron saint of wine and merrymaking, sort of a Christian answer to Bacchus.

This year we celebrate the desacralized “holidays” amid what is for many unprecedented economic ruin — fortunes halved, jobs lost, homes foreclosed. People wonder, What happened? One man’s theory: A nation whose people can’t say “Merry Christmas” is a nation capable of ruining its own economy.

http://thinkprogress.org/2008/11/20/henninger-christmas-economy/

[I]t hasn’t been about salvation for a long time. The essential religious message, for better or worse, has been “revised” into a secular message that basically comes down to “You done all right for a year now, it’s time to set aside being Scrooge and enjoy Giving.”

When I read this, I was reminded about how little anyone talks about Jesus at Christmas gatherings, except to occasionally say that we shouldn’t forget “what Christmas is about.” The heavy artillery, of course is conspicuous consumption, much of it done for the conscious purpose of expressing either closeness or obligation toward others. Either way, it is an expression that that other falls within one’s realm of concern.

I see it an extraordinarily visible attempt to simultaneously express one’s social ties and status. Christmas is a lek. And yes, it’s a time when a lot of sexual selection is going on. And social climbing. And social testing. All the things that people usually do, they do extra during the holiday season.

As far as those tacky gifts, maybe it’s not that they are gifts, but they are so often tacky. And the problem with the Christmas music is not that it is music, but that it is so often BAD music (by which I mean cheesy versions of classic tunes pumped through stores, or tinny versions coming out of an electrified Christmas card.

Tonight my daughters and I watched a choir rehearse in a large Catholic Church (St. Louis University College Church, in midtown, St. Louis). They were still working out the kinks in a few of their pieces, but even the bits and pieces were lush; even the mistakes were captivating. When they rev it up in full dress in a few weeks, it’s going to be a superb musical offering to those in the church and to each other. Now that’s a worthy gift–doing something difficult well, for others. That’s my idea of the spirit of the season.