Is Capitalism Ruining Christmas?

Catholics are seriously annoyed at the way the holiday season is changing. If you are among them, you are probably already annoyed at this article, because I didn’t say Christmas season. It is Christmas, for goodness sake, so why can’t we just say that? I received an e-mail the other day from Amazon.com headlined, “The 12 Days of Holiday,” and the official greeting we get from store clerks is “Happy Holidays.” In fact, there are cases in which corporate higher-ups have ordered employees not to say “Merry Christmas.”

All of this represents a shift in the culture, no question about it. But who or what is at fault? From time to time, you hear dark warnings about how this is due to the influence of “the Jews” or the infiltration of American life by “radical Islam.” But more generally, another enemy has emerged: commercial society. As usual, capitalism — easy enough to blame for all things we don’t like — is coming in for a beating.

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