I

t’s the most wonderful time of the year! If you are at least forty there’s a good chance you can remember watching live on television an Andy Williams Christmas Special and hearing that opening sentiment being sung during the show. It was a seasonal mainstay in the repertoire of most every crooner of the time, but Andy’s version, with the elaborate “Hallmark card” stagings, remains for me a favorite childhood memory. His yearly live Christmas specials ran from the mid-sixties right on through the seventies. I think the eighties saw the networks cutting back with only one every two or three years. There have been “reunion specials” as recently as 2005 featuring the Osmonds and other personalities from the earlier shows making appearances and “reliving” the magic. Yet here’s the sad realization: Williams, Crosby, Como and some other notables sang – along with pop tunes – rich, traditional hymns filled with the Gospel message... and the viewers over time tuned them out. The networks probably discovered through lower ratings that this kind of entertainment was costing them market share. So, nobody came along to replace these entertainers as they died or drifted away to open a theater in Branson, MO. Something definitely changed. The result is that my grandchildren, your grandchildren, will never see nor hear meaningful Christmas music broadcast live over the public airways in the style of Andy Williams or others of just a generation ago.

I know I’m not the first to lament that momentum is growing for taking the “Christ” out of Christmas. It’s been happening for a long time in our society. Even before the founding of our nation! In his 1742 edition of Poor Richard’s Almanack, Benjamin Franklin commented “How many observe Christ’s Birthday! How few, his Precepts! O! ’tis easier to keep Holidays than Commandments.” It’s not a surprising conclusion that mankind has never wanted much to do with God, which is right in step with the pronouncements of the Scriptures. Years later Franklin and many of the Founders who were grounded in the Faith would try to inject a healthy shot of reverence for God into the establishing first documents of our country. But the heart of man is where the sickness truly lies. We can also with much trepidation conclude that we are witnesses of the final, total secularization of Christmas in America. Just consider: There are school age children who will not hear the word “Christmas” ever mentioned in their public schools; you probably won’t hear an elected leader saying “Merry Christmas” this season (let me know if you do); there won’t be a nativity scene in front of a courthouse or town hall (maybe somewhere off the beaten path); and don’t expect a sales clerk to say something more meaningful than “Happy Holidays” (for fear of being reported and losing their job). Mark Sooy brings this up in his column, too.

We can, however, still proclaim it here, in the pages of TRUTH – for now at least... without fear of reprisal. “Merry Christmas!” But someday even that may change. I have chosen an unusual (and hopefully interesting way) to make us think about the possibility of being restricted or limited in our references to God, to Christ and His first Advent. That is one reason for our magazine’s two “front” covers. It’s not a mistake! Please, don’t be confused. The outer cover suggests a somewhat bucolic harvest time setting somewhere in rural America. The captions and headings have been “sanitized.” While giving some information, they purposely don’t tell the whole story of what’s contained inside. It’s designed so as not to offend (this is a similar argument made by Ken Kemper in the last issue of TRUTH: Now Is the Appropriate Time, p. 4, Jul-Sep 2009). This is almost the reality we find ourselves in today. The reader will have to turn to the second, “hidden” cover to find the full titles of the articles and discover that this magazine is all about honoring and worshipping God. I know, for the second cover to have greater visual impact, I should have used a picture of a nativity in front of a church. But I really like Christmas trees. I’ve done the layout so that all you have to do is fold the first cover around to the back to reveal the inside one boldly.

Yes, there is a second reason for the two covers: Seasonal pictures stir up many fond memories in all of us. I always struggle with which event to feature on the magazine’s cover – since two wonderful, God honoring holidays occur in this quarter. I live in Florida and can’t experience firsthand many of the cues that tip off most of us that the holidays are approaching (cold, crisp temperatures – it’s 92 degrees as I write this; fall colors; harvested fields; snow; we do see a large number of migratory birds and Canadians this time of year). Pictures are a substitute for those missing indicators, and this year I get an extra hint.

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