The Minions Who Stole Christmas

Many years ago the Devil called a special meeting of the leadership of his minions.  He chose some of the most devious minds from the ranks of the Dominions, Principalities and Powers regimens. 

“We have a serious problem on our hands,” he said.  “This Christian celebration of the Nativity of Christ is growing way too big and must be stopped.  The message of God’s love and saving power in the Incarnation is ruining our chances with a lot of people.  It’s leading a lot of people to believe that they don’t have to settle for the mess, misery and destruction we helped to create.  Too many are seeking reconciliation with God through the God-man and His redemption of human nature and the fallen world through His Incarnation.  It must be stopped!  So I have called you here today to brainstorm the best ways to put a stop to this annual celebration of the Incarnation of Christ.”

A number of ideas were set forth and debated, all focusing on how to destroy or stop the annual Feast of the Nativity of Christ.  Some of the ideas discussed were good and some not so good.  Some involved a lot of evil and violence against Christians, wrecking havoc through sickness, suffering and even death.  But one of the minions reminded everyone that such efforts in the past had tended to drive people to a greater love and desire for God and His redemption rather than away from Him.

When the ideas were getting thin and the minions were about to adjourn for a “smoke”, one of the lesser known but brighter minions proposed a new idea and a different approach. 

“Maybe” he said, “instead of trying to destroy the celebration of the Nativity we should think of how we could sabotage it and make it our own.”  The room grew eerily silent as the idea sunk in and almost instantly the Devil and his demons instinctively knew the minion had hit on something.  Yes, this was it!  It was ingenious!  “Tell us more,” prodded the Devil. 

“The idea,” continued the minion, “would be to let people celebrate, indeed to encourage people to celebrate while little by little over time we plant ideas and customs into the celebration that will change it so gradually from one generation to the next that eventually the true meaning and message will be lost.  People will continue to celebrate each year but it will be a celebration that we delight in rather than one that brings fear and dread to our beings.”   The idea was so simple, yet so profound that the air was full of excitement.  It was then suggested that they break into small groups to brainstorm ideas on how to accomplish this brilliant idea of sabotage.

When the brainstorming session had ended and the various ideas were collected a committee was appointed to put the ideas into a manual and provide a copy to all the demons for immediate execution.

The chapters of the manual formed alliteration: The Purity of the Feast, The Perversion of the Festivities and The Pretensions of a Few.  Aahh! This was it!  (The demons loved to use alliterations.  They sounded cute and ingenious. They could be easily used to manipulate the subject and make the text say what they wanted it to say and people loved the entertainment aspect of alliterations. Years later, many preachers would adopt alliterations as one of their favorite tools for preaching, often with the same results.) 

First, the demons had to understand the purity of the Feast before they could begin to understand how to pervert it.  They knew the Feast was a holy day in the Church that was kept holy and preserved in a number of ways.  The Feast was never celebrated before the Feast Day.  The Feast was preceded by a period of 40 days of prayer, self-denial, fasting, almsgiving and confession, all in preparation to receive and worship the Holy Nativity in Spirit and in Truth.  Only on the Feast Day would there be celebration and the celebration then continued for the twelve days after until the Feast of Theophany (the manifestation of Christ as God and God as Trinity in the Holy Baptism of the Saviour).  These celebrations centered in the worship services of the Church.  During this time the hymns proclaimed the joy and truth of the meaning of the Incarnation.  Thus, the purity of the Feast was maintained and the true meaning of the Feast was celebrated.  The Faithful received the Grace of God through the Divine Services to unite themselves to the God-man born of the Blessed Virgin Mary to become partakers of the Divine Nature.  The Faithful knew that without the Incarnation there is no Salvation.  The minions knew this had to change if they would ever have a chance to make the Feast their own.

The name itself was a problem and a good place to begin to whittle away.  “So long as the name contains a reference to the Holy Nativity of our Lord God and Saviour Jesus Christ,” the minions reasoned, “there would be no hope of change.”  This title would always keep the celebration focused on Christ’s Incarnation.  “A new name is essential,” they concluded.

But the minions knew they could never get away with changing things in the Church suddenly or with replacing something holy with something obviously evil or demonic.  They knew it takes time, much time and patience over many years, and they knew the changes have to appear as something good at least at the beginning and on the surface.   Furthermore, they knew their best bet would be to conquer and divide.  If they could get groups to separate from the one Church and One Faith and form rival groups with divergent teachings, they could easily use this to their advantage.

Now the demons knew that it was next to impossible to get anything about the Church changed in the East.  The Fathers in the East were staunch and uncompromising in their defense of the One Apostolic Faith and Church and their rejection of any innovations.  So they turned their attention to Rome and the West where the winds of change and innovation were already well under way and gaining acceptance as a result of Rome’s separation from the Orthodox Faith of the East.  It was noted that the West was more and more calling the annual feast the Christ Mass instead of the Feast of the Nativity of Christ.  Now here they saw potential for real change.  Eventually, this could be abbreviated into Christmas and finally the word Christmas would gain widespread acceptance in the world and could be used without any reference or recognition of the Nativity of Christ.  This would be the first of many steps for the eventual and complete sabotage of the Feast of the Incarnation.  With this first step it was now only a matter of time until everything could be turned on its head and inside out.

The second section of the manual dealt with the second alliteration, The Perversion of the Festivities.  Up until now the focus of the festivities was on the Feast Day and after the Feast Day the primary focus was the worship and glorification of the Feast in the hymns and prayers of the Divine Services.

In this regard, the first thing that had to change was the focus on prayer and fasting leading up to the Feast.  The minions knew that once the Feast was renamed it was only a matter of time until the Feast would gain acceptance in the world and then it was only a matter of time until the world would celebrate Christmas as a worldly, self-indulgent and materialistic holiday.  Thus, over time, the fasting and prayers and the meaning of the Incarnation would be replaced by dinners, parties, drinking, commercialism and in general a celebration for the sake of celebration.  To be sure certain historical elements would be retained such as almsgiving, the emphasis on peace and good will and the remembrance of Saint Nicholas as a symbol of Christmas love and compassion.  But the demons knew it was only a matter of time until these “good” ideas would also be perverted into self-worship and self-indulgence – a humanistic worship of Man.  The demons knew all that was necessary for all of this to happen over time was for the celebration of Christmas to be separated from the celebration of the Holy Nativity in the one true Faith and Church.  

Slowly but surely the world and Christians who separated from the Church began to introduce festivities that would eventually succumb to a worldly celebration with no connection to the Nativity of Christ and the Incarnation.

The Christmas tree was one of these early introductions.  Some say Martin Luther was the “inventor” of the Christmas tree.  The idea was that the evergreen tree was a reminder of eternal life in Christ.  And then came the lights, - candles at first and then eventually electric lights.  These were reminders of Christ the Light of the World.

But over time, separated from the Church, the Christmas tree and the lights became more prominent with less meaning or connection to the Incarnation.  Eventually, the world would celebrate Christmas in a pagan way using the Christmas tree and lights.  Soon the world would add snowmen, sleigh bells, mistletoe and all the rest.  These would become nothing more than cheerful decorations to help create a certain “spirit” which was essentially a self-created warm, cozy and fuzzy feeling that makes everyone think they have the “spirit of Christmas”.   The minions danced with glee when they envisioned such developments. 

The same thing happened with Saint Nicholas.  St. Nicholas was venerated in the Church as a godly bishop from Myra of Lycia (today’s Turkey) who defended the true Faith and true Church at the First Ecumenical Council against the Arian heresy.  In the Church he is venerated for his love not only for the truth of the Incarnation but also for the poor and suffering.  In no time at all the world stole St. Nicholas from the Church and created a Christmas idol called Santa Claus.  In this, the minions rejoiced.   Here was a figure, a new incarnation that would eventually replace Christ in the celebration of Christmas.  All the attributes of God would be assigned to an imaginary and make believe figure.  Parents would teach their children to believe in a fairy tale as a reality right along side of the story of the birth of Jesus.  The minions surmised that the story of Jesus would become a fairy tale in the minds of people just like Santa Claus.  Parents would teach their children to believe in Santa Claus just like they were to believe in Jesus.  They would teach them to pray to Santa, trust in Santa and hope in Santa.  After all, Santa Claus (not Jesus) would be the source of all good gifts at Christmas.  He would possess all the attributes of God: holy – he is like a saint; loving and compassionate; omnipresent – he is present at all times in all malls and all parades in all the world; omniscient/all knowing- he knows when you are asleep or awake and if you have been naughty or nice and he knows what you want even if you don’t get a chance to talk to him - he sees and discerns your heart and mind; omnipotent/all powerful – he is able to make reindeer fly and with a small sleigh deliver millions of toys around the world in a single night.  Yes, Santa Claus was the best idea of all for sabotaging the message of the Incarnation.  Santa is God incarnate and the true God-man is no longer needed.

Another ingenious idea of the minions was to create a big emphasis on family and children at Christmas.  This seemed a good and natural part of Christmas.  But the minions intended that eventually, Christmas would focus almost entirely on the children and seeing their wide eyes on Christmas morning, and about families getting together with some eggnog or cocktails and lots of food and feeling all warm and fuzzy inside while listening to Hear Comes Santa Claus.  And the spirit of Christmas will really be there if it’s a white Christmas.

With these changes in place the “peace on earth, good will to men” of Christmas would no longer be understood as a part of the Kingdom of God resulting from the Incarnation and experience in His Church but rather a worldly and humanistic utopian dream that the “spirit” of Christmas creates for a few days each year only to be forgotten the day after when everyone is relieved that its finally over. 

As the minions reviewed the manual they were amazed at their own ingenious ideas.  The goal would be to make people think they are celebrating Christmas when in fact they are celebrating themselves and their own self-indulgence.   “What a plan,” they surmised, “these things will make Christmas our own! Only in the true Church will the Nativity of Christ still be observed rightfully and they are so few it hardly matters.”

“But there is still one problem,” said a fiery eyed minion.  “What about all the other professing Christians of Rome, Protestantism and Evangelicalism who will continue to insist on ‘keeping Christ in Christmas’?”

“Not to worry,” exclaimed the brains behind the plan.  “This is all covered in the third section of the manual, The Pretensions of the Few.  “So long as they cease to call it the Feast of the Holy Nativity of our Lord God and Saviour Jesus Christ, and so long as they cease to observe the prayer and fasting leading up to the Feast but instead join the world in its celebration of parties, snowmen, lights, sleigh bells, Santa Claus and self-indulgence their efforts at keeping Christ in Christmas will amount to very little.  And so long as they reduce it all to the children and families getting together, and the make believe ‘spirit of Christmas and peace on earth, good will to men’ all their talk about keeping Christ in Christmas will be meaningless.  They will even cancel their church services on Christmas day because it’s ‘all about the family’ rather than all about the worship of God and the Incarnation.  And whatever kinds of celebrations they do attempt in their churches will be mostly some forms of worldly entertainment that will celebrate the performers and entertain the audience with little or no connection to the true meaning of the Incarnation.”

“To be sure,” one of the minions concluded, “someone will one day expose our plan and some of those Christians will read it and think ‘how true’ and they will ‘Like’ it on Facebook but then they will continue as usual to celebrate the pagan Christmas of the world as usual.  It’s just too hard and to unpopular to do it any other way.”

A Review of the Minion’s Manual

by joseph bragg