Those trappings include the commercial overkill, the spending spree, the borrowing binge, the surly shopper, the tedious travel, the ubiquitous carol, the forced bonhomie, the diet-destroying gluttony, and the obligatory mingling with preferably-distant relatives. No wonder so many people get the blues.
For most people, though, these nuisances usually yield to a rush of goodwill. Hearts hardened by stress soften at the sight of wonderment in a child's eyes. Emotions rubbed raw are soothed as total strangers commit random acts of kindness. Hate Christmas? Nah.
There is, however, one small category of people who really do fear and loathe the spirit of Christmas. To understand why, take a look at just two of the names on Christas's all-time enemies list: Oliver Cromwell and Fidel Castro.
What do the 17th Century English despot and Cuba's longtime dictator have in common besides being murderous tyrants who used military force to seize power in an island nation? This: Both tried to suppress Christmas.
That's no coincidence. Tyrants are control freaks. They despise whatever they cannot control, and the spirit of Christmas is beyond their control.
One reason: Celebrants often borrow from primitive man's seasonal rituals. Among those rituals recurring themes is a revival of hope for liberation from the darkness and the cold as the winter solstice's passing ends the threat that some evil force would devour or dim the sun.
Pagan priests in northern climes ritually burned yule logs to restore the sun's strength. Such ceremonies rekindled the hope that everyone would soon be freed from winter's harsh oppression, just as the biblical story of Jesus's birth gave early Christians the hope of liberation from the Earth's mortal vale of tears.
Cromwell the Puritan prig saw Christmas as a pagan bacchanalia that exposed Britons to impure thoughts. And Castro the communist monarch saw Christmas as an artifact of a rival ideology.
Although Castro temporarily relented this year to allow a national today, it was only because of the pope's imminent visit to Cuba. When Castro exploits the public-relations gain from this gesture toward his captive subjects' beliefs, he'll go back to being a grinch.
Yet the durability of Christmas and other seasonal celebrations suggests that the universal message of peace on Earth and goodwill toward men will survive long after Fidel Castro joins Oliver Cromwell in death's embrace. In a cruel world, that message of the first Christmas still gives millions a reason to hope.
Copyright © 1997 The Miami Herald