I like to imagine Christmas as the last truly great fortress of Christendom. Pretty much every other Christian thing that had any actual cultural significance has been eroded or compromised or tainted, but I imagine the devils absolutely dreading the coming of December, reminiscing fondly about Saturnalia and other pre-Christian pagan orgies, and looking at the Christmas festivities as indomitable walls blazing with unendurable light and heat. But most great fortresses in history have fallen by treachery or subterfuge, not open assault, and I think it’s no different here. The tunnellers are well at work.

One of those tunnels is holiday sentimentality, namely focusing on the emotional effect the celebrations have rather than on the thing being celebrated. It’s a subtle trick, because the emotional response to soft lights and ornamented trees and rich food and all that is good and unavoidable. But just like a man can be focused not on the good of his wife but rather on how his wife makes him feel, and vice versa, so we can chase emotional highs at Christmas time and not see that this is the first step on the path back to pagan self-indulgence and debauchery.

Instead, remember that your feasting and gift-giving and merrymaking are doing something objective in the world. They are not just about creating emotional experiences for you and yours, but rather the songs and the cider and the gifts and the gratitude, the feasts and the lights and all of it are proclaiming the truest of things: that Jesus Christ came in the flesh for the redemption of the whole world. This is not about me and my feelings. Rather, this is about bearing objective witness to your children and neighbors and a dying world that man may have peace with God through the blood of Jesus, and that the risen Christ is Lord of All.