CS Lewis: What Christmas Means To Me

I have just been sent this link to CS Lewis' Christmas essay www.geocities.com/regkeith/linkholidaysCSLewis.htm (sorry about the music). This essay captures very well a lot of the annoying aspects of the "commercial" Christmas. CS Lewis observes, very truly, that there are in fact three different celebrations on Dec 25th:

One is a religious festival. The second is a popular holiday, and the third is of course the commercial racket.

I think the problem I have is extracting and celebrating the first meaning from the "noise" of the other two.

Fortunately in our family the third (commercial) Christmas is becoming less and less prominent every year. This year I think everyone gave and received Oxfam or TEAR charity cards! This is a great step forward from a few years ago when Dean and I were thought to be weirdos for doing this.

I was a little sad to see the Myer windows this year. They were a celebration of "Ex-Mas", which I assume used to be Christmas but is no longer.