Conan struggles with his Holiday decoration emotions

Thinking about the challenges of celebrating a totally family centered (and cultural) Christmas

A long, long time ago, in technology terms, I asked my Apple iPhone what I thought was a simple question — “Hey Siri, when is Christmas?”

As you would imagine, this led to an “On Religion” column that opened with that exchange, and a few others:

After the two-tone "BEED-EEP" chime, the voice of the Apple iPhone responded: "Christmas is on Tuesday, December 25, 2012. I hope I have the day off."

Then matters got complicated: "When is Advent?" Siri searched her memory and said: "I didn't find any events about 'Ed Fant.' "

Trying again: "When is the Advent season?" Siri cheerfully responded: "I am not aware of any events about 'advent season.' "

After several more "BEED-EEP" chimes the Apple cloud ultimately drew a blank when asked, "When does the Christmas season end?" Alas, Siri didn't understand the term "Christmas season."

I am happy to report that Siri now understands that — in Western Christian culture — the 12 days of Christmas start, as opposed to ending, on December 25th. That’s progress. However, Siri settled for some Google search results when asked “when is the feast day of the Nativity of Our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ?” By the way this is not a question about celebrating Christmas on the old Eastern Orthodox calendar.

When I watched the Conan O’Brien video clip featured in this post, I thought that he was being quite candid about his “Christmas” emotions, in terms of the many ways in which he had connected the Christmas season with the emotions of his children, and that was pretty much that. Now the children have left the nest and, well, “What is Christmas?” or maybe, “Why is Christmas?”

The other day, on the day after the Feast of Saint Nicholas, I led a Nativity Lent retreat at our home parish that focused on these two topics — “Our Home is Different” and “Our Christmas is Different.” The retreat was videotaped and I hope to share the results with Rational Sheep readers, once they are posted online.

The first talk discussed the role of digital screens in Christian homes, with an emphasis (#DUH) on smartphone issues. The second talk addressed the struggles people have celebrating the cultural steamroller called “The Holidays” from the Christmas seasons of Advent (Nativity Lent in the Eastern churches). Smartphones are even a factor there. Hold that thought.