Last evening, after cleverly disguising myself as a bald, middle-aged suburbanite, I took a tour of churches within a couple miles of my home. Sixteen churches. Not one single solitary creche.
"Ha!" I thought. "Ha ha!" How can they expect me to honor the most sacred season on the Christian calendar when they so obviously don't?
But then it occurred to me--maybe some other Anti-Christmas guerilla cell had stolen them all. Note to self: figure out how to contact the Underground.
Either way, it seems like encouraging news. Just for the record, I did spot one primary-colored plastic Nativity on a private lawn. Also numerous Santas, some quadruped ruminants, possibly of the order Artiodactyla, numerous snowmen, none made of snow, and an assortment of very large candies. Plus two neglected U.S. flags and a Notre Dame Fighting Irish banner, which must count for something.
I do live on the tonier side of town, so my sample may include a greater proportion of mainstream churches whose members are all going to Hell anyway, and the final count includes both a Seventh Day Adventist compound and a Quaker meeting hall, neither of whom could be expected to participate. For the sake of completeness I drove past two Synagogues, just to see if they'd gotten the message that tolerance means honoring the dominant culture. Not yet.
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I checked the neighborhood where I work, which is almost all embassies and ambassador's houses. (Please note, I WORK here, I live in a post-WWII neighborhood full of Cape Cods). Interestingly, the local Ambassador that puts up the most Holiday lights every year? Laos. Isn't Laos officially an Atheist country????
We've got reindeers by the hottub of the apartment complex. PAR-TAY!
... although someone better not drink too much and shove a lighted reindeer into the hottub ... I'm thinking of that scene in Eating Raoul here.
We always had a 24-hour nativity scene with live animals outside Old First Reformed (UCC) in Philadelphia. One year the doll representing Jesus was stolen from the manger, a crime written up in the newspaper.
I've moved, and now my church has a huge banner "JOY" draped across the street front of the building. (It represents one of the four Advent banners inside, not my self-labeling.) I'd love to see a live creche here, but we're a smaller church, and I agree with the council's stand that it's more Christian to put our efforts and money toward sending Katrina relief workers and heating the homes of the poor.
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