A misquote attributed to J. D. Salinger in the book Catcher in the Rye goes something like this.

“If Christ could see Christmas, he’d puke.”

But like many “quotes” attributed to famous people—to give them the weight of intellectual or literary authority—this is not what he wrote as dialog for Holden Caulfield. What Salinger wrote is much more aligned with the rest of this piece. Here’s what Caulfield said in the book after seeing a Christmas show at Radio City Music Hall,

“I said old Jesus probably would’ve puked if he could see it—all those fancy costumes and all.”

J. D. Salinger, Catcher in the Rye.

Those with another purpose then twisted Salinger’s words, that the historical Jesus would have been offended by “those fancy costumes,” into the more erudite, “If Christ could see Christmas, he would puke.”

I think in either case, it misses the mark completely.

Assuming for the sake of argument there was a historic figure, Jesus of Nazareth—leaving aside the whole virgin birth, son of god, risen from the dead elements. And assuming the elements of the faith he preached about doing undo others as you would have them do unto you is an effective summary, I don’t think he’d puke at all.

“I said old Jesus probably would’ve puked if He could see it—all those fancy costumes and all.”

J.D. Salinger, Catcher in the Rye

While one can make an argument about the distortion of consumerism and the glitz of the decorations, that same consumerism puts food on the table of those who produce and sell those goods. And the act of giving gifts to others, paid for by those jobs, meshes pretty well with the elemental spirit of “old Jesus.”

Perhaps if they had just created a few bumper stickers for their camels or roadside signs on the road to Jerusalem instead of writing the bible, more people would have understood the message and not twisted it to their own purposes.

As a young boy, they subjected me to a Catholic upbringing. I became Catholic not by choice but by virtue of the geography and lineage of my birth. Richard Dawkins compares the spread of religion to that of a virus. Your parents, or guardians, are the host spreading the virus onto their off-spring who do the same thing.

In the entire time I attended the Catholic Church and while growing up in Cumberland, RI, I met no one whose religion differed from their parents. It was remarkably consistent.

Which brings me back to the concept of the Christmas Spirit. Inevitably, over the coming weeks, one will see those very effective bumper stickers that say, “Put Christ back in Christmas.”

I would argue he was never out of it. That time and society has drifted away from the purely religious mysticism and turned Christmas into a holiday of Jingle Bells, Ho, Ho, Ho, and Rudolph the Red-nosed Reindeer are a sign of progress.

We don’t need religion to teach us the fundamental philosophy of doing unto others as you would have them do unto you. A fat guy in a red and white suit riding the magic of imagination accomplishes the same thing in a much more effective way.

Now that’s not to say religion, for many, doesn’t have its place. The story of the wise men following the star is so ingrained in my psyche that every year, as Christmas approaches, I often think one star appears brighter than it does other times of the year.

This is not a harmful belief unless I forget it is based on something other than reality. Perhaps back then a supernova shone brightly, coinciding with the myth of the birth of Jesus. Perhaps the lapse of time between the writing of the story—decades after it allegedly happened—wrapped the truth with wishful fiction.

But it doesn’t alter the reality of what Christmas means to many outside of its religious origins.

If one wants to understand the spirit of Christmas, all you have to do is watch Charlie Brown’s Christmas. It covers the gambit of topics from the consumerism and the glitz—Snoopy’s winning the decorating contest—to Linus reciting the story of the Angels announcing the birth of Jesus to shepherds in the field to the whole group singing around the simple Christmas tree Charlie Brown embraced as only a child could.

There are a lot of things that might make “Old Jesus” puke in this world. Many of them are done in his name. But Christmas isn’t one of them.

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