Think You Know Everything about Christmas?

                                                 
James Martin comically challenges every audience, no matter how religious, to see if they really know the Christmas story. Honestly not the very faithful religious person, I did not know most of the facts he wrote about in his Washington Post article, "Five myths about Christmas". Christmas is not the most important Christian holiday, Easter is. Martin says this because, "The overriding importance of Easter is simple: Anyone can be born, but not everyone can rise from the dead," (Martin 1). Jesus's birth is not found in all the stories of the Gospels, but it is only found in the the Gospel of Matthew and the Gospel of Luke. Mark and John don't even mention Jesus's birth, but Matthew and Luke both agree that Jesus was born in Bethlehem. Another interesting fact I learned was that Jesus was the "virgin birth", but he was not an only child. Jesus actually had step-brothers and step-sisters. The "diluting of Christmas meaning" however is something that most people today identify with for the Christmas television marathons, gift giving, and believing in Santa Claus. Many churches have changed their traditional midnight Christmas mass to earlier times of 4pm and 8pm to accomodate kids and elderly. Hence, those people  who go to the earlier masses can't say they are going to midnight mass, because lo and behold it's not midnight.

In the article "Five myths about Christmas", James Martin writes a challenging but witty article about what people believe to be true about Christmas. Martin supports many of his points with direct references to quotes from the Bible. This technique establishes logos and ethos with his intellectual ability to logically support his claims and credibility with his audience for knowing the references to the Bible. The author uses a lot of religious diction in this article, but it is not difficult for any audience to follow. Martin also includes some humor in this article. My particular favorite line was, "Whenever I see a Macy's ad imploring shoppers to "believe," I want to stab someone with a candy cane. What does Macy's want us to believe in, anyways? I doubt it's the incarnation," (Martin 2). Maritn identifies his audience as anyone when he says, "No matter your religious beliefs -- whether you're devout, doubtful or downright atheist," (Martin 1), and he assumes his audience is  familiar with the "Christmas story".

Source: Martin, James. "Five myths about Christmas." The Washington Post 16 Dec. 2011, sec. Opinion: n. pag. The Washington Post. Web. 18 Dec. 2011.