Did Mr. Narnia himself not like Christmas? Well, in his essay, “What Christmas Means to Me,”[1] he calls it a nuisance. He also describes it as a racket, says that it produces nightmarish pain, and that it’s part of a lunatic condition of the world. So, yeah, he wasn’t much of a fan.
Now, Lewis does not have in mind, what he calls, the “religious festival” of Christmas (i.e., where Christians focus on and celebrate the incarnation of Christ). He’s also quick to say he’s not critiquing anyone’s merrymaking and celebration of winter holidays. For this, he takes the how-you-have-fun-is-none-of-my-business tact.
He focuses, in roughly 650 words, the full force of the Lewisian intellect and wit, with a good dose of scrooge-ish sentiment, on the commercial side of Christmas. We might use scare quotes here and call what he has in mind “Christmas.” He seems particularly annoyed by the expectation and practice of gift giving in the Christmas season. Now, I think this is quite humorous and I have found yet another reason to love and identify with Lewis.
Lewis sees this commercial racket as a ploy forced on us by shopkeepers to get us to spend our money. He condemns the practice because of the great pain of shopping, to which many will say Amen. He says:
Long before December 25th everyone is worn out—physically worn out by weeks of daily struggle in overcrowded shops, mentally worn out by the effort to remember all the right recipients and to think out suitable gifts for them. They are in no trim for merry-making; much less (if they should want to) to take part in a religious act. They look far more as if there had been a long illness in the house.
Additional complaints include “anyone can force you to give him a present by sending you a quite unprovoked present of his own. It is almost a blackmail” and “things are given as present which no mortal ever bought for himself—gaudy and useless gadgets, ‘novelties’ because no one was ever fool enough to make their like before.”
It’s good for the economy, or so they tell us.
But can it really be my duty to buy and receive masses of junk every winter just to help the shopkeepers? If the worst comes to the worst I’d sooner give them money for nothing and write it off as a charity. For nothing? Why, better for nothing than for a nuisance.
I think it’s safe to say from the sentiments expressed above that Lewis is not a fan of “Christmas.” He’s especially not a fan of what gets attached to Christmas. He’d rather just write a check and be done with it.
But having disdain for “Christmas” shouldn’t suggest that Lewis did not deeply appreciate the religious significance of Christmas. Lewis was deeply captivated by the incarnation of Christ and all that this means for us as Christians.
Elsewhere he says, “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” (ch 14 in Miracles).
It is the incarnation that, in many ways, sets Christianity apart from other religions. God very God stepped into our world. I’ve argued before that there is no bigger claim than this. The transcendent, all-powerful God of the universe was born in a manger becoming like us in order to reconcile us to God. This, I suggest, is just better than all of the commercial Christmas activities. Now we don’t have to jettison the Christmas season, of course. Maybe we can try to avoid blackmailing each other with our gift-giving and not wear ourselves out with getting ready for all the festivities. But there’s no question we do not neglect to celebrate the incredible miracle of Christmas when God became man.
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[1] Chapter 6 of God in the dock: Essays on Theology and Ethics (Eerdmans, 1970)
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