Christmas

Why “Celebrate” Christmas—and the Epiphany?

by Bruce Frohnen

Did you know that Christmas celebrations were banned in Scotland until 1958? I certainly didn’t, not until my son started working on his sixth grade “Christmas around the World” report. I haven’t looked up what the English did in this…

Light Amid Darkness: A Christmas Meditation

by Regis Martin

On first hearing the news that Calvin Coolidge had died, humorist Dorothy Parker impishly asked, “How could they tell?” I thought of that the other day when a friend told me that the Winter Solstice was coming, thus giving us…

Christ is Born! Come, Lord Jesus!

by Fr. Robert Johansen

In the crypt of the church of St. Mary Major in Rome, under the high altar, rests a crystal reliquary containing five pieces of sycamore wood, which are believed to be the remains of the crib of the infant Jesus…

The Silent Wonder of Mary and Joseph

by Jacques-Bénigne Bossuet

We have beheld the shepherds coming in from their fields glorifying God and bringing all who heard them to glorify him too. Yet here is something still more marvelous and edifying: “Mary kept all these things, pondering them in her…

C.S. Lewis on Christmas

It’s a sad irony that Charles Dickens, who most likely did not believe in the deity of Jesus Christ, is the English writer most identified with Christmas, while C.S. Lewis who is one of the most articulate literary proponents of…

Cultural Amnesia and the Separation of Church and State

by Bruce Frohnen

One of the sadder aspects of Christmastime in America is the display of ignorance on the part of so many Americans regarding the constitutional tradition of our country. Why at Christmas? Because it is at this time of year that…

The First Proclamation of the Gospel

by Jacques-Bénigne Bossuet

The beginning of the Gospel is in the angel’s words to the shepherds: “I bring you good news of a great joy,” the good news of the birth of a Savior. (Luke 2:10) What news could be better? When he…

Sing we Noël!

by Christopher O. Blum

Speaking of his medieval ancestors and ours, d’Alembert once said that “Poetry for them was reduced to a puerile mechanism.” James Madison, echoing him, judged the result of fifteen centuries of Christian civilization to be little more than “pride and…

Three Wise Men and Three Stooges

by Rev. Dwight Longenecker

Epiphany–in my opinion–has always had the edge on Christmas. Sure, I like the Christ child and the manger and the ox and ass and St Joseph, and the Blessed Virgin, and the angels and shepherds and, “Ye shall find the…

Steady in Iowa, Romney Counts on New Hampshire, Florida

by Michael Barone

Election year has finally arrived, well after the beginning of a turbulent and unpredictable elections season, and voting begins on Tuesday in the Iowa Republicans caucuses. The few days of post-Christmas polling have shown the numbers oscillating and opinion…

Whose Country Is It, Anyway?

by Patrick J. Buchanan

Half a century ago, American children were schooled in Aesop’s fables. Among the more famous of these were “The Fox and the Grapes” and “The Tortoise and the Hare.” Particularly appropriate this Christmas season, and every Christmas lately, is…

The “Place” of Christmas

by Rev. James V. Schall, S.J.

I once read of a Japanese writer who was annoyed that Christ had not appeared in some inn in the hills of Honshu. The logic of this complaint would mean that, to satisfy everyone’s sense of justice, Christ would have…

Make Each of the Twelve Days Festive

by Zoe Romanowsky

The following article first appeared in the December 2000 issue of Crisis Magazine. To maximize your Christmas cheer, the Crisis editors and writers put their heads together to produce this guide to the twelve days of Christmas. According to…

The Empty Manger

This year, as every year, the crèche has sat empty of God. The shepherds knelt, the angels sang, the ox and ass and eager lamb looked on, even Joseph and Mary stared down adoringly—at a vacant manger. There was…

Christmas, Pagan Romans, & Frodo Baggins

by Rev. Dwight Longenecker

One of the old chestnuts concerning Christmas (and I don’t mean the type roasting on the open fire) is the charge brought by old-fashioned Protestants and new-fangled atheists is that Catholicism is old paganism dressed up in new clothes. These…

Hail, Sol Invictus!

by Michael Cook

Let’s imagine for a moment that Christmas had never happened and that the Roman Emperor Aurelian had succeeded in establishing the feast of Sol Invictus on December 25 back in the year 274 AD. Instead of Christmas, we would have…

Christmas: the Infinite, and the Finite

by George Weigel

The title of Father Edward Oakes’ new book, Infinity Dwindled to Infancy, nicely captures the imaginative challenge posed at Christmas: the mystery of the infinite God become finite man. In truth, however, the challenge to our imaginations has less to…

Shrugging Before the Manger

by Russell Shaw

The problem many of us have with Christmas isn’t that we expect too much of it but that we expect much too little. My Christmas wish for all of us, myself included, is that we raise our sights and ask…

King Henry VIII, Come Save Us!

The following is an excerpt from The Bad Catholic’s Guide to Wine, Whiskey, and Song, which can arrive gift-wrapped in time for Christmas if you order today. It’s obvious that any tome whose authors hope will be carried into…

Yes, There Are Christmas Haters

by L. Brent Bozell III

In this special season of giving, Hollywood is willing to give people what entertainment executives think the country needs: a vicious, bloody takedown of Christmas. The Dec. 11 episode of “American Dad” on Fox exemplified those with a complete absence…

Our Lady of Guadalupe: Bleeding Hearts, Liberated

This essay is excerpted from The Bad Catholic’s Guide to Good Living (2005), which remains an excellent Christmas gift (hint, hint). If you think Mexican politics are raucous now, you should have been there in the 16th century. Before…

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