FCNNEWSSOURCE
The television and radio ads have been blaring with gift givers turned into superheroes for offering that perfect present, love birds cooing over the jewelry dangled from an open hand and the excited squeals of children destroying boxes wrapped in shiny paper to get to goodies inside.
The joy of Christmas, the joy of X-mas.
If only truth and reality were aligned with the seductive marketing and consumer driving magic of Madison Avenue ad agencies and corporations gleefully rubbing their hands at expected sales and merchants praying the season to be jolly will mean closing the year with a bang–and making a nice profit.
The official beginning of the shopping season netted retailers nearly $45 billion with Black Friday and weekend after Thanksgiving shopping alone. The money raked in was a little more than what consumers plunked down for purchases last year. But, not to be outdone, on “cyber Monday” millions more shopped and spent online.
Instead of the sound of sleigh bells, it may be more appropriate to have the sound of cash register sales as signs that X-mas is upon us.
The magicians behind the ad curtain and the consumer enticing messages they spread don’t show the reality suffered during this time of year where peace on earth and good will toward men is a ready cliché.
This is the season in which crime will increase–an elderly woman will be beaten and her purse snatched, a man will try to rob a liquor store, grocery or gas station, an unsuspecting neighbor or charity will be robbed of Christmas presents–and havoc and indecency will reign at Christmas parties and encounters under the mistletoe.
This is the season where payday lenders and others will offer money for gifts at exorbitant interest rates and even lend money for gifts to people who are jobless.
The homeless and the poor will see a symbolic showing of weekend kindness but their meager existence, hard lives and harsh treatment will return on Monday morning.
This is the season in which love and affection will be lost as disappointment and perceived insult tied to getting or giving the wrong gifts will come to a head.
This is the season in which some poor child will learn there really is no Santa Claus and wrestle with the reality that Mommy and Daddy lied and apparently everyone was in on the game.
Sadly, this the season where a life will be lost to suicide as holiday blues and false depictions of happy, whole families overwhelm some lonely soul. This is the season where someone will drive drunk or ingest a little too much coke or shoot a little too much heroin or smoke a little too much crack or overindulge in their drug of choice and there will be no return from a final high.
This will be a time of year when people suffer and hurt because they follow what they found parents and grandparents and families following–though none knows the root of the traditions and why they are followed.
They won’t know the Christmas tree and ornaments and even December 25 are tied to the rites and worship of pagans who were honoring their sun god–not the figure declared to be the son of the One God.
They won’t know that gift giving and evergreen trees are tied to the worship of the wicked Babylonian king Nimrod and celebrations of the birth of a murderer and tyrant.
And the figure at the center of X-mas isn’t Jesus at all, but a fat, jolly man in a red suit.
“Santa Claus has knocked Jesus out of the top spot and the merchants who don’t even believe in Jesus are busy selling you foolishness, making themselves rich and you poor on the basis of a lie and that’s why they call it X-mas because you don’t know who it is that you are worshipping,” said the Honorable Minister Louis Farrakhan in a lecture when he imparted knowledge about the true meaning of X-mas. He warned that what has been falsely billed as the birthday of Jesus is really a “commercial feast of foolishness.”
The Minister’s teacher, the Honorable Elijah Muhammad wrote in “Our Saviour Has Arrived” that “Jesus is garbed up and commercialized on by a world of evil and sin and you like this, my people–you love this now. You defy anyone, even God Himself, to try and remove your love of what is false.”
If you feel compelled to give loved ones gifts this year, give the best gifts ever–try a book or something that will impart knowledge or better yet give of yourself, your time and your spirit. Show and share the love that you feel in sincere expressions, warm hugs, positive conversations while sharing and making the best of memories and leaving lasting pictures in the mind. These pictures and experiences will last far longer and are more valuable than the trinkets tossed and gifts exchanged.
Give a gift to yourself: Pledge to strive to be a better person and to walk better after the example of Jesus and to live the life that he lived. Following the example of a righteous human being is perhaps the best way to celebrate that life and make the world over in his image and after his likeness.
