Pope Benedict decried the commercialization of Christmas as he celebrated Christmas Eve Mass on Saturday night, urging the faithful to look beyond the holiday’s “superficial glitter” and “find true joy and true light” in the simplicity of Christ’s birth.

With due respect to the pontiff, your blogger begs to differ. As Ayn Rand put it in 1976, “The best aspect of Christmas is the aspect usually decried by the mystics: the fact that Christmas has been commercialized.”

The street decorations put up by department stores and other institutions — the Christmas trees, the winking lights, the glittering colors — provide the city with a spectacular display, which only “commercial greed” could afford to give us. One would have to be terribly depressed to resist the wonderful gaiety of that spectacle.

The question we should ask ourselves is, why should men who claim to offer spiritual guidance not want us to enjoy the fun of Christmas? Why should they urge us to seek “true joy” in the rejection of pleasure and spectacle? Does not man deserve to be happy, if only for a few short days in December? This writer believes he does and wishes you a merry and commercial Christmas!