Episode Details

Did you ever read the book where C. S. Lewis criticized trumpery? At the holiday season? “They buy gifts for one another such things as no man ever bought for himself,” Lewis lamented. But he did love Christmas. So did professor J. R. R. Tolkien, who celebrated so hard that he ghost-wrote letters from Father Christmas, from the North Pole, for his own children. What can we learn about critiquing yet celebrating Christmas from these two legends?

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Episode sponsors

1. Enclave Publishing: Lumen by J. J. Fischer
2. The Culling Begins by Anthony DeGroot
3. I. W.R.I.T.E.: How to Write a Novel course

Concession stand

• Got thoughts on secular Christmas? That’s another episode (next year?).
• Got thoughts about Santa? That’s our existing episode 44.
• By now we have a whole “evergreen” series: Christmas Magic.

Quotes and notes

https://lorehaven.com/c-s-lewis-despised-exmas-cards-and-cosplays-but-loved-serious-celebration/

Introducing guest David Bates

David Bates is an English software engineer. He moved to the United States in his late twenties, living in Washington DC, Seattle and San Diego, before getting married during COVID and moving with his wife to La Crosse, Wisconsin, where they have two children. David runs the weekly podcast Pints With Jack, where he discusses the works of C. S. Lewis, the Christian apologist and author of The Chronicles of Narnia.

https://www.pintswithjack.com/hosts/

1. How did Lewis despise ‘Xmas’ cards and cosplay?

• Most folks might think of Lewis’s positive Father Christmas in TLWW.
• But the author also satirized the holiday in one lesser-known article.
• You can find this in God in the Dock: Essays on Theology and Ethics.
• The editor, Walter Hooper, termed the essay “Xmas and Christmas.”
• The short piece features C. S. Lewis’s scathing take on the subject.