Carry On Carolling! Why Bizarre Warnings About Christmas Customs Should Be Ignored

Authored by William Brooks via The Epoch Times,

American historian Paul Kengor has amply documented the early poems and plays of Karl Marx, which are “rife with pacts with the devil, suicide pacts, violence, vengeance, fire, despair, destruction, and death.”

Marx hated God, and Marx’s disciples have been at war with religion for more than 100 years. In the hypersecular domain that Father Richard Neuhaus described as “the naked public square,” the left remains deeply disturbed by the survival of Christianity.

Over recent months, the Canadian Department of National Defence seemingly made a bid to disallow prayer on Remembrance Day, and a recent Human Rights Commission report called Christmas a racist observance “grounded in Canada’s history of colonialism.”

Days ago, thousands of U.S. university students marched with anti-Semitic, “Red-Green” Islamo-Marxist mobs that disrupted Christmas tree lighting ceremonies in U.S. cities.

As yet, attacks on Judeo-Christian culture don’t have the full endorsement of prevaricating progressive politicians. Nevertheless, legions of academics, “woke” professionals, and state apparatchiks are clearly establishing an anti-religious path for our political elites.

The Campaign Against Christmas Music

Secular progressives have sought to purge Christianity from public spaces for decades, and one of their more bizarre assertions is that Christmas music is bad for our mental health.

Several years ago, a British psychologist, Linda Blair, warned that listening to Christmas music could damage our psychological well-being by triggering feelings of stress. She said Christmas songs bring on thoughts of things that we feel obliged to do over the Christmas season, such as shopping for gifts or planning for a family dinner.

Ms. Blair’s contentions have been making headlines in news outlets for the past several years. In November 2017, a CBS News story began with, “Christmas music may take mental toll, psychologist says.” Within days, a Fox News report echoed, “Christmas music is bad for your mental health, British psychologist says.”

The same irrational warnings have been repeated year after year. In 2019, a Fox 32 Chicago headline read, “Christmas music can negatively impact your mental health, psychologist suggests.”

In mid-December 2021, a publication of the British Psychological Society invited people to look at building “new traditions and ways of celebrating” because COVID-19 was casting “uncertainty over traditional Christmas plans.” A January 2022 Psychology Today column by London-based psychiatric consultant Rafa Eufa led with: “Christmas Is Over. What a Relief! The forced happiness of the winter holidays can be stressful for many.”

Writing in a more recent edition of Psychology Today, Raymond Leone, a director of medical music therapy, described a “Love/Hate Relationship With Christmas Music” and asserted that “Christmas music can sometimes feel imposed on us.”

When similar seasonal anxieties appeared this year, it was déjà vu all over again. Writing in the “Health” section of Business Insider, writer Rosalind Ryan asserted that “there’s a reason why some Christmas songs make you cry.” She went on to allege that Christmas songs “may be written in a certain way to trigger feelings of sadness.”

In November, openly Christian Fox News contributor Raymond Arroyo finally treated all of these silly allegations with the contempt they deserve. “There are some ‘Grinches’ who just want to extinguish anything that has even the whiff of God or faith about it,” he reported from the streets of New York City.

Christmas Promises Peace Not Trauma

It’s clear that Christian customs have become less welcome in the public square, and the left has developed a particular dislike for the celebration of Christmas.

Over recent years, ordinary North Americans have experienced considerable levels of distress. But sensible people aren’t blaming their troubles on exposure to multiple replays of “We Wish You a Merry Christmas.”

The actual source of our stress is contained in the catastrophic social and economic policies that have been introduced by misguided neo-Marxist ideologues.

For most citizens, reckless spending, porous borders, high energy costs, inflated food prices, family disintegration, homeless encampments, unprecedented levels of crime, fraudulent election procedures, corrupt politicians, racial division, failing schools, mob violence, and censorship are all considerably more disturbing than Christmas music.

For centuries, Christmas has amounted to more than just the formal observance of a theological event. Advent and the twelve days of Christmas are festive occasions that focus on the birth of Jesus in Bethlehem and the arrival of the Magi who recognized the Christ child by offering gifts.

Christmas festivals include feast days, family reunions, concerts, good cheer, gift-giving, and of course the enjoyment of sacred music. It’s an opportunity to share a love for God and a natural affection for fellow human beings.

Sometimes, religious customs can get lost in too many extravagant events and parties. But Christmas always serves to renew our spirit of charity and remind us of obligations to feed the hungry, clothe the poor, forgive the guilty, care for the sick, love our opponents, and do unto others as we would have them do unto us.

This year, we will celebrate Christmas in Wales and plan to take great pleasure in attending a carol service at the 1,500-year-old Newport Cathedral, whether the British Psychological Society recommends it or not.

The insightful Father Richard Neuhaus was firmly convinced that the survival of truly free societies depends almost entirely on our capacity to remain informed by the philosophy and values of Judeo-Christian traditions.

The promise of Christmas is peace and goodwill, not despair and psychological trauma.