For the Love of Christmas

I love Christmas and the whole season surrounding it.

Bookended by Thanksgiving—a celebration of the productiveness that makes human flourishing possible—and New Year’s Eve—a celebration of new beginnings and self-improvement—Christmas is about enjoying the fruits of our productiveness and virtue to date. The three holidays are themed and organized as if Jean-Baptiste Say and Ayn Rand decided the matter together: production, consumption, improvement.

From thoughtful gifts and cards, to sparkling trees and lavish decorations, to parties, caroling, ice skating, and mistletoe—Christmas is a celebration of the good: rationality, creativity, commerce, benevolence, family, friendship, happiness, love.

Although some people treat Christmas as a religious holiday about a selfless savior who suffered and died to atone for our sins, Christmas is in fact a secular holiday about selfish people living and loving life because of their virtues.

Enjoy the presents, enjoy the festivities, and love your loved ones with all you have. Delight in the material and spiritual wealth you have selfishly amassed.

Love Christmas. You earned it.

About Craig Biddle

Craig is cofounder and editor of The Objective Standard, cofounder and director of education at Objective Standard Institute, and executive director of Prometheus Foundation. He is the author of Loving Life: The Morality of Self-Interest and the Facts that Support It; Rational Egoism: The Morality for Human Flourishing; and the forthcoming Moral Truths Your Parents, Preachers, and Teachers Don’t Want You to Know. He is currently working on his fourth book, “Thinking in Principles.”

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