I was out shopping on Saturday. I didn’t do much shopping, actually, since I don’t buy gifts except for charity, but I enjoy that shopping excitement unique to Christmas shoppers. Stores were crowded still. (I wouldn’t dare venture forth on “Black Friday.”) The Christmas spirit is as alive as capitalism could hope for, seduction everywhere, and it’s all quite okay because, well, it’s Christmastime.

Few of the shoppers now think much about the “meaning” of Christmas, though where I live in the Deep South, there are probably more who think about it than there are in other places. “Jesus is the reason for the season” can still be seen on bumpers, on coat pins, and such. Pretty soon, all the Protestant churches (there’s only one Catholic church here) will be scheduling and advertising their Nativity plays. We don’t have to worry so much here about protests against religion in public life, especially at Christmas. Even militant atheists, it seems, soften up a bit at Christmas.

 

Why is that? Despite the complaints from many Christians about “the war on Christmas,” even the most anti-Christian people still want it. They may hate Christianity, but they still love Christmas and somehow celebrate it. Do they ask themselves why? They probably explain it in Humanism terms—the evidence that humans love each other and buy gifts for each other, that Christmas is a celebration of peace, that it’s a reminder of family and/or community, etc., etc. None of those explanations mention Christ, so they’re all okay.

 

But that’s not it. Those things can be celebrated anytime—and are. No. It’s the magic. The lights, the music, the “break” from ordinariness. Tinsel and glitter and all sorts of dollar-store decorations that would, at any other time, be considered tasteless, even gaudy, are welcomed with childlike delight. It’s all wonderful, joyful, magical. Science, humanism, secularism, and all the other modern gods must step aside at Christmastime, because Christmas is magic, not subject to reason, to secular creeds of any kind. “Christmas,” explained one newly minted atheistic college freshman, to her despairing and devout mother, “is for everybody, not just for Christians.” Okay. But explain the appeal, explain why it’s okay. Why is it okay to love Christmas with such cheerful abandonment of atheist principle.  

 

It’s the magic. That “break from ordinariness” is a break in time and space in our ordinary lives. Why is it a break from Reality? Why do even the most dedicated and adamant non-believers feel it, know it, recognize it? “We all become children again at Christmas,” they declare with self-indulgent sentimentalism, ignoring the question:Why?

 

The question is ignored because it has only one honest answer: Because Reality—that ultimate evidence of literally everything in the universe—is interrupted. By what? By the Incarnation. The simplest answer is always the hardest one to accept. We’d rather do all sorts of anthropological intellectual gyrations, or psychological/biological analyses, and all that stuff. But the truth is that reindeer, Christmas trees, pagan and non-pagan celebrations alike, all have their root source in the magic, the mystery of the Nativity, whether or not they believe. It’s magic. It’s other-worldly. And more: It’s that other-world coming into—literally coming into—our world. It’s the advent of the metaphysical into the physical. And it does so with or without our consent, and despite all our proofs against it. That’s magic.