The name “Advent” is the Latin version of the Greek “parousia,” which means “coming.” Advent is thus a season not only awaiting the celebration of Christ’s nativity, but also awaiting his second coming; in fact, the passages usually used liturgically to commemorate Advent vary between Old Testament prophecies expecting the Messiah, and New Testament prophecies […]

It is a popular thing to dislike Santa Claus. Consider, for example, the lyrics of Greg Lake’s song about Father Christmas: And I believed in father christmas And I looked at the sky with excited eyes ’till I woke with a yawn in the first light of dawn And I saw him and through his disguise […]

In recent years, there has come to be a cultural challenge to the sappy sentimentality of Christmas, a challenge that focuses on those excluded from it. I am thinking of filmic Christmas scenes such as that in in Lethal Weapon, blues-style songs like “The Little Boy That Santa Claus Forgot,” and even the increasingly popular […]