Culture Making is now archived. Enjoy five years of reflections on culture worth celebrating.
For more about the book and Andy Crouch, please visit andy-crouch.com.

Nate:
from "Christmas is NOT Too Consumeristic!," by Jeff Heidkamp, Not The Religious Type, 30 November 2009

Third of all, at Christmas, people spend a lot of time and money on getting together with other people to eat and celebrate together.  This is one of the healthiest things in the world to spend time and money on.  Again, people complain about the stress of putting together nice Christmas events.  But I would argue that love is usually costly- it isn’t easy to love well.  And there is nothing unspiritual about good hospitality and great times of being connected to friends and family. As far as all the commercial accouterments- well, it’s America.  I would simply suggest that attacking Christmas is attacking consumerism in the wrong place.  People dump tons of money on themselves ALL the time.  Christmas is the one shot we get at encouraging people to spend money to show love to other people and spend time being connected to the people that matter most.  If that means I have to listen to the Chipmunks Christmas album at the grocery store in October, so be it.