I do wonder now if “The Spirit of Christmas” is a necessary consumer capitalist mythos to absolve people for their (necessary for the holiday) excessive consumption. That there is a “True Meaning of Christmas” as an abstract idea of niceness that does not require consumption 1/3

actually allows the consumption to continue largely unquestioned. People need to believe that the consumption is accidental because we still have enough innate moral sense to know that it can’t just be about unquestioned getting and spending. 1/2

But the original Christmas story will not do both because its religious particularity excludes potential consumers and because, well, in a word, Magnificat. 3/3