From the pen of Patrick Reardon in Touchstone magazine, 2001, comes the following item titled, “What Child Is This?”

“An actual conversation that took place in a post office in Chicago, between my wife and a postal clerk:

“Denise: ‘I would like a dozen first class stamps, please.’

“Clerk: ‘Any special kind?’

“ ‘Yes. I would like some Christmas stamps.’

“ ‘Christmas stamps? Ah, I have four kinds of Christmas stamps. Here I have one of a jumping reindeer, and here is one called Hanukkah. We also have one called Kwanza. There’s another one here too. I don’t know what to call it; it’s a picture of a woman and a baby.’ ”

Did it ever occur to you that Christmas has been somewhat turned around? Our modern day culture, with its need for instant gratification as evidenced in the drive-through phenomenon,

instant on-and-off widgets, and cable channels galore producing unending boredom, has, not all by itself, replaced all the patient waiting of Advent.

The sense of anticipation, growing each day, would eventually give rise to the overwhelming joy and festive celebration when Christmas Day finally came. This celebrative joy would be carried out for 12 days, ending on the Epiphany.

Nowadays there is such an eagerness to get to Christmas that Advent is bypassed. Right from the beginning of Advent there are Christmas parties, gift exchanges, and whatever other indulgences, all of which glut the soul and displace Advent with a secular version of Christmas.

What adds to this grinched creche is that we all know how the story ends. So, why bother about the details of how God prepared a people, about how, “When the fullness of time had come, God sent his Son ... .”

You really can’t sing “Joy to the World” until you have savored and genuinely rehearsed “O Come, O Come Emmanuel.”

Christmas before Christmas has invaded our Churches, too. Christmas trees, wreaths, nativity sets and the like have no place in the Church until Christmas. The Vigil Mass of Christmas Eve is being displaced in some churches by multiple Masses of anticipation, a sort of oxymoronic commercialization.

When did all this happen? When was it decided that Christmas precede Dec. 25? When did turkeys get into pear trees and the very mention of Christmas become politically incorrect?

When did holly wreaths and candy canes and St. Nicholas become offensive? When did Mary and the Child Jesus become merely the woman and baby?

Who has changed the meaning of Christmas?

Why do we allow it to happen?

How silently, how silently,

The wondrous gift is giv’n!

So God imparts to human hearts

The blessings of His heav’n.

No ear may hear his coming,

But in this world of sin,

Where meek souls will receive him, still

The dear Christ enters in.

— “O Little Town of Bethlehem,” v.3

May the annual remembrance of the birth of Christ bring to you all the blessings of what is meant by God loving you so much that He humbled Himself to look like you, humanly speaking, only to ask you to look like Him, baptized as you are.

Happy Christmas and Merry New Year!