Copyright Joe Shea The American Reporter 1999

CHRISTMAS 'SEASON' -- A MATTER OF EDITORIAL STYLE
By Allan R. Andrews
American Reporter Correspondent

WASHINGTON -- I'm not interested in being the millennial grinch trying to steal Christmas, nor do I desire characterization as Dickens' Scrooge, but I think journalists, especially those who take pride in "getting it right," need to be alert to the warping of Christmas that takes place each year in America's marketing love affair with the holiday.

Those scrutinizing editors who insist that Xerox and Rollerblading cannot be verbs, and that flags flown half-way up the pole are at half-staff when flown on shore and at half-mast when flown at sea (or at naval stations), ought also to educate themselves concerning the differences between Christmas, Advent, and Epiphany.

Primarily, they should understand that the "Christmas season" for Christians begins rather than ends on December 25, the federal holiday known as Christmas Day.

Incidentally, one won't find Advent or Epiphany in the AP Stylebook, a sure sign editors are generally ignorant when it comes to understanding the Christmas season, for Advent, Epiphany and Christmas are intimately linked.

The Christmas season that America celebrates is not the season of the Christian holy day. I'm not offering a sermon here; it's plain and simple calendar fact. For Christians, the Christmas "season" begins on Christmas Day, not with the shopping sprees that begin the Saturday after Thanksgiving.

To be sure, the days leading up to Christmas are important to Christians, but they fall into that season of the church year that most Christians call Advent, which begins on the last Sunday of November, commonly on the Day designated as the Feast Day of St. Andrew.

Eastern Orthodox Christians begin the celebration a few weeks earlier, on November 15, and they refer to the season as Nativity-Lent, which lasts until Christmas Day, after which they celebrate the 12 days of Christmas until January 6, the Day of Epiphany, sometimes called the Eastern Orthodox Christmas.

For Christians, nothing could be farther from the spirit of Advent or Nativity-Lent than the Madison Avenue-inspired season of tinsel joy and plastic peace culminating in expensive gift exchanges and spiraling debt on Christmas Day.

The fundamental spirit of Advent and Nativity-Lent is repentance and self-sacrifice.

The word Advent is translated as "coming," and Christians spend the four weeks of that season anticipating the coming of Jesus, remembering his coming in a manger as the Messiah -- the anointed one of God -- and looking to his coming again in judgment as the Lord of the Universe.

Many Christians maintain an Advent wreath during this season, lighting one of four candles each week to commemorate the traditional 4,000 years of Hebrew history prophesying a Messiah and leading up to the birth of Christ.

The season of Advent is not an overwhelming season of childhood joy and pleasure in toys; it is not a season of gaiety and festive celebration marked with mistletoe and eggnog; rather, it is a somber season of self-examination and prayers of penitence seeking God's mercy and forgiveness. Eastern Orthodox Christians mark the season with 40 days of fasting, breaking their penitential denial of the body only on December 6, the feast day of St. Nicholas.

There are overtones of Advent even in secularized celebrations, especially in the remarkable displays of seasonal lights, for Advent is a season of light. In fact, Christians refer to Jesus as the Light of God come into the world, and light is an important symbol of Advent.

Christmas season does not begin sometime in late November and countdown -- most often according to the remaining shopping days -- to the feast day of Jesus' birth. Instead, the season of Christmas begins with the end of Advent. Christmas as a season lasts for 12 days (hence, the popular carol concerning the "Twelve Days of Christmas," and the even better known "Twelfth Night," that Shakespeare popularized). The 12 days of Christmas begin on Christmas Day, December 25, and run to January 6, the day of the Epiphany.

Concerning the singing of carols, Christians striving to be true to the season generally hold off singing Christmas carols until Christmas season. Instead, prior to December 25, they sing Advent hymns, ancient and modern lyrics and melodies focussing on the coming of the Messiah. Furthermore, they will sing Christmas carols at least a week into the new year, and then they will sing the anthems of Epiphany.

Furthermore, Christians celebrate St. Nicholas, the archetype of the popular Santa. This is especially true of Eastern Orthodox Christians. St. Nicholas was a 4th century bishop in Asia Minor who took part in the Council of Nicea that framed the Nicene Creed, one of Christianity's enduring compilations of the faith. The Dutch who founded New York and referred to him as Santa Claus also revered the saintly bishop.

When modern critics complain about the length and superficial glitz of America's "Christmas season," it's not the authentic Christian "season" they are criticizing; instead, it is some commercially promoted happy-talk designed to spur an end-of-year economic boom.

It behooves modern editors to keep the definitions and distinctions straight. In this first week of December, we are not yet in the Christmas season, unless one accepts the season as defined by Macy's.

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Allan R. Andrews can be contacted at allan.andrews@reporters.net