I occasionally travel with my job and have been spending a good bit of time the last couple of months in Chicago. With joy (and some relief) I returned to Fort Worth today. Coming home to Dixie and my family. Walking into my house all decorated with the Christmas tree and presents, wreaths on the front door and over the fireplace, stockings are hung on the mantle and the general sense of the holidays covers my home. I can’t fully describe the feeling of love and security in being in my own house with my family, knowing once again I’m back in the Southland, the place that tugs at my heart and soul constantly.
Plans are made for Christmas with my wife, kids and I all being on vacation for two weeks during the Holidays. We will spend a good bit of this time in Fort Worth involved in activities at our church and focusing on the meaning of Christmas to us as Christians and practicing the traditions of our Southern families that have been passed down for generations. Christmas day will be spent in Waco with my wife’s family sharing in good food and conversation, exchanging of gifts and sitting around enjoying one another’s company. These simple pleasures are the bedrock of Christmas and what this time of year has traditionally been used to celebrate: The birth of Christ, giving to others and love of family.
I must confess my disappointment at some news my wife told me upon arriving home today however. She told me of watching the Dallas Christmas parade on the TV the other day and what a sad display it was at times. The one thing that stood out the most was an up close shot of Santa Clause and she could hear Santa saying, "Happy Holidays, Happy Hanukkah, Merry Kwanzaa!" Excuse me? Where is the traditional "Merry Christmas?" After all, it was the CHRISTMAS PARADE! Once again, in focusing on being so politically correct, someone had gone and left out what the season was all about to make room for others.
Well, I have news for those who would follow this path. Christmas is about Christ. The absurd idea of leaving Him out so as not to offend other’s sensibilities offends mine. No one is forced to celebrate this holiday, so we don’t need to change it. For those who want something to celebrate this time of year and don’t want Christmas, do what the black extremists did and create a holiday (Kwanzaa). Kwanzaa is not an African holiday, they’ve never heard of it over there. This was something thought up by black Americans to celebrate their ancestry.
The fact that this PC Santa in the Dallas parade chose to omit the reason for his parade just reinforces what I’ve seen in this Dallas/Ft. Worth metroplex: Too many Yankees moving into our beloved South with strange ideas trying to knock down our Southern traditions and replace them with new ones that erase our Southernness and leave Southerners disenfranchised in their own land. Let us all as Southerners pray that this Christmas is a time of love and hope with a rebirth of Southern holiday traditions, and let us not be conformed to the outsiders, but help them conform to the traditions of the South: Hospitality, charm and keeping Christ in Christmas.
Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year,
Jeff Adams
Fort Worth, Texas
December 7, 1998