Mere Christmas
“‘The White Witch? Who is she?’, ‘Why, it is she that has got all Narnia under her thumb. It’s she that makes it always winter and never Christmas; think of that!’ ‘How awful!’ said Lucy” [1].
One of the greatest dystopias that C. S. Lewis could imagine under an evil tyrant was an eternal winter—with no Christmas. The very thought of it brings us back to childhood threats of receiving coal rather than candy. Narnia’s bitter, cold world was absent of joy, hope, and the Savior. Sadly, then and today, many would rather mourn the absence of Santa Claus, new gifts, and hot cocoa.
What did Lewis have to say about this? Was he simply a Scrooge like in Charles Dickens’s The Christmas Carol, or was he getting at something else? When we consider Lewis’s views of Christmas, three distinct themes emerge from his writings that help Christians think about this important holiday.
The Advent of Materialism
The first aspect of Lewis’s view on Christmas was his absolute disdain for the materialistic atmosphere surrounding it. It is not uncommon for Christians to push back against the commercialization of Christmas. Yet Lewis was ahead of the curve by expressing his sentiment decades before others. Lewis writes to an American correspondent in 1953: “I feel exactly as you do about the horrid commercial racket they have made out of Christmas. I send no cards and give no presents except to children” [2]. He expresses similar sentiments two years later:
I seem to have been writing Christmas letters most of this day! I’m afraid I hate the weeks just before Christmas, and so much of the (very commercialized and vulgarized) fuss has nothing to do with the Nativity at all. I wish we didn’t live in a world where buying and selling things (especially selling) seems to have become almost more important than either producing or using them [3].
Why did Lewis feel this way about this holiday? He explains in “What Christmas Means to Me” that four problems arise from that “thing called Christmas” (that is, the “commercial racket”) [4]:
– First, the commercialization of Christmas “gives on the whole much more pain than pleasure” [5].
– Second, it is largely involuntary, making it a cultural norm. Hence, receiving a present without giving one is equivalent to blackmail.
– Third, people give presents that they would never buy for themselves, for reasons of either cost or novelty.
– Lastly, the materialistic focus of Christmas is a nuisance. “[C]an it really be my duty to buy and receive masses of junk every winter just to help the shopkeepers?,” writes Lewis [6].
For Lewis, giving to charity for no apparent reason is highly favored compared to the nuisance of engaging in this, now, cultural norm. His disdain for materialism would lead to an interesting dichotomy, which leads us to a second theme that emerges from his writings.
Two Holidays
In a variety of ways, Lewis would refer to Christmas as two very separate holidays. In his brief, tongue-in-cheek essay, “Xmas and Christmas: A Lost Chapter of Herodotus,” Lewis satirically tells of the story of a group of people (the Niatirbians) and evaluates their practices leading up to, and on the actual day of, Christmas. The majority of the Niatirbians celebrated a festival titled “Exmas.” Under the traditions of this holiday, its adherents send irrelevant cards and ridiculous, unaffordable gifts. Then, on the actual of the festival, they become intoxicated, gluttonous and lethargic.
However, a minority of Niatirbians celebrated the holiday in a way that is altogether different from the majority. Rather than subscribing to Exmas through drunkenness and debauchery, they celebrate “Crissmas,” waking up early and adoring a young child part of a sacred story [7]. What emerges from this story is the rather distinct practices of the Niatirbians in anticipation to and on Christmas day. In essence, two very distinct holidays emerge on the same day.
We can see the instant parallels between Lewis’s satirical society and our contemporary culture. Although all the Christmas festivities are celebrated in conjunction together, Lewis illustratively points out that, really, two separate celebrations are occurring. He writes:
But what Hecataeus says, that Exmas and Crissmas are the same, is not credible. For first, the pictures which are stamped on the Exmas-cards have nothing to do with the sacred story which the priests tell about Crissmas. And secondly, the most part of the Niatirbians, not believing the religion of the few, nevertheless send the gifts and cards and participate in the Rush and drink… But it is not likely that men, even being barbarians, should suffer so many and great things in honour of a god they do not believe in [8].
“Three things go by the name of Christmas. One is a religious festival,” continues Lewis in another essay about these distinctions. “The second (it has complex historical connections with the first, but we needn’t go into them) is a popular holiday, an occasion for merry-making and hospitality…But the third thing called Christmas is unfortunately everyone’s business” [9].
On a more practical and personal level, he writes to one of his American pen pals: “To tell a story which puts the contrast between our feast of the Nativity and, all this ghastly ‘Xmas’ racket at its lowest.” He continues, “My brother heard a woman on a ‘bus say, as the ‘bus passed a church with a Crib outside it, ‘Oh Lor’! They bring religion into everything. Look—they’re dragging it even into Christmas now!” [10]
Not only did Lewis personally believe that two different celebrations occur at Christmas, but he also noted certain cultural cues. This leads to a third theme that emerges from his writings: a desire to see Christmas focused on the very essence of the holiday.
Simply Christmas
Lewis was decided that there is one main point to celebrate Christmas, as illustrated in The Chronicles of Narnia. One of the most peculiar narratives in all of Lewis’s writings is the appearance of Father Christmas in The Lion, The Witch, and the Wardrobe. This oddity is to the point that some critics have even declared it a flaw (though, I do not agree) [11].
This episode doesn’t bother such critics because of its apparent irrelevance, but because of the distinct shift in narrative. Let’s briefly consider what Lewis says about Father Christmas:
[P]ictures of Father Christmas in our world make him look only funny and jolly. But now that the children actually stood looking at him they didn’t find it quite like that. He was so big, and so glad, and so real, that they all become quite still. They felt very glad, but also solemn [12].
At least two distinct points arise from this “Father Christmas” episode. First, in his subtle way, Lewis is noting that Christmastime is a season not only for joy, but also for solemn contemplation. Second, we note that he gives the children “tools not toys” [13]. While these differences are nuanced, we begin to see the real point in Christmas—especially when Father Christmas cries out as he is leaving, “Merry Christmas! Long live the true King!,” Doris T. Myers, suggests that Father Christmas proclaims the evangelium in this statement [14]. As the archetype of Christmas rides through the land, the curse of eternal winter is beginning to lose its effect [15].
Conclusion
Lewis wasn’t simply a personification of Scrooge, wanting to take the joy out of Christmas. Rather, he desired to see Christmas celebrated with a focus on the real importance of the holiday: the Incarnation. On Christmas Eve of 1939, Lewis wrote to his brother saying that if you don’t believe in the Incarnation, “what in heaven’s name is the idea of everyone sending everyone else pictures of stage-coaches, fairies, foxes, dogs, butterflies, kittens, flowers, etc.?” [16] For Lewis, celebrating Christmas was strictly focusing and meditating on the birth of Christ: the Incarnation. To him, no other part of the festivities truly mattered.
“The central miracle asserted by Christians is the Incarnation. They say that God became Man. Every other miracle prepares for this, or exhibits this, or results from this,” Lewis would write in Miracles [17]. For this British author, the Incarnation was not only the focus of Christmas festivities, but also the very apex of all God-given miracles. Lewis sums up the heart of Christmas quite succinctly when he writes, “The Son of God became a man to enable men to become sons of God” [18].
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[1] C.S. Lewis, The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe (New York: Harper Collins Publishers, 1950), 20.
[2] C.S. Lewis, Letters To An American Lady (Grand Rapids: William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company 1971), 22.
[3] Ibid., 50.
[4] C.S, Lewis, God in the Dock: Essays on Theology and Ethics (Grand Rapids: William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, 1970), 305.
[5] Ibid.
[6] Ibid.
[7] Ibid., 301-303.
[8] Ibid., 303.
[9] Ibid., 304.
[10] Lewis, Letters To An American Lady, 80.
[11] Doris T. Myers, The Compleat Anglican: Spiritual Style in the ‘Chronicles of Narnia’ Appendix Five in Paul F. Ford, Companion to Narnia, Revised and Expanded: A Complete Guide to the Magical World of C.S. Lewis’ ‘The Chronicles of Narnia’ (New York: Harper Collins Publishers 2005), 476.
[12] C.S. Lewis, The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe, 117.
[13] Ibid., 118.
[14] Ibid., 119.
[15] Myers, 476.
[16] C.S. Lewis quoted in Surprised by C.S. Lewis, George MacDonald, & Dante: An Array of Original Discoveries (Macon: Mercer University Press 2001), 24.
[17] C.S. Lewis, Miracles: A Preliminary Study (New York: The MacMillian Company 1943), 306.
[18] C.S. Lewis, Mere Christianity, (New York: Harper Collins Publishers 1952), 178.
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