The Yearly War on Christmas: My LTTE in my small red town

[TalkingDog]

The yearly war on Christmas is upon us.


It’s time to voice our complaints about “holiday” advertisements, to start petitions proclaiming our outrage and to chain e-mail friends and acquaintances about which retailers to harass for not being “Religiously Correct” for excluding references to the upcoming Christian Holy Day


I seem to recall a time about 20 years ago, when the same people were wailing and gnashing their teeth about retailers debasing the holiest of days by using it to sell products and make money. Commercializing Christmas they called it. They started petitions proclaiming their outrage and called friends and acquaintances about which retailers to harass for not being “Religiously Correct”. They wrote letters to businesses demanding that the retailers, the Money Changers they called them, stop using Christmas to lead consumers into earlier and more elaborate shopping sprees; to stop belittling their faith by making money off the birth of their Lord.


This short attention span and lack of long-term memory makes it easy for religious leaders and conservatives to drag their oh-so-willing flock around by the nose; pushing them to disrupt one group of heathens here, feel terrorized by another there. It makes the political process in this country quite simple: keep the Christian masses riled up enough and they won’t notice or care about jobs disappearing, rampant inflation, shady bank deals that are putting millions out of their homes, lack of adequate health care and the recession we all know is here, but no one will admit. Their children aren’t being educated; heaven forbid they might learn evolution. And that they people they selected and elected to be moral and upright leaders are betraying their trust, taking their money and laughing all they way to the bank by way of their favorite drug dealers and gay “escorts”.


And even though United States is country predominately made up of those who claim to be Christians, somehow they feel put upon because their leaders constantly tell them that they are put upon. That makes them the 500-pound, easily led, easily angered, short-attention span gorilla in the room. Where does he sit? Where ever his handlers tell him to. The rest of us sigh and roll our eyes, knowing that soon enough they will have another upright and moral cause to distract him from the reality that they are being used and abused just so their handlers can have a little more power and stuff a little more money in their pockets


And that is truly what the War on Christmas is all about. Happy Holidays everybody.




My Favorite Master Artist: Karen Parker GhostWoman Studios

[msmcghee]

1. Good on you! n/t

[ayeshahaqqiqa]

2. May it be published far and wide! N/T

[wtmusic]

3. Nice.

Let us know if it's published. :thumbsup:

[winter999]

4. Did you know that "holiday" is a derivative of "holy day"?

Merry Christmas to you.

(Yes, I'm a Christan and so are my kids - who, btw, know all about evolution.)

I would expect a Jew to wish me Happy Hanukkah - anything else would be just plain weird. I'd also expect a Pagan to wish me Happy Winter Solstice and an Atheist Season's Greetings.

Aren't we all supposed to be respecting each other's culture?

[wtmusic]

6. So if OP doesn't celebrate Christmas

you wish them a happy one anyway? IMO that seems weird.

onedit: to me respecting each others' cultures implies not foisting ours upon them.

[winter999]

7. So what do you suggest?

Not great anyone? It's the only safe bet, after all.

Shouldn't we welcome a greeting from a person's culture? I do. It tells me about the person whom I'm talking to. Just like a handshake or bow.

Getting offended by "Merry Christmas" (or "Happy Hanukkah", "Happy Kwanzaa", "Happy Solstice" etc.) seems intolerant.

May I ask if you say "Happy New Year" to Chinese people even though Jan 1 isn't their New Year?

On Edit: You're not forcing your beliefs on someone unless you demand they reciprocate your greeting instead of their own.

Merry Christmas

[wtmusic]

8. The greeting "Merry Christmas" means

"I wish you a Merry Christmas", or "Have a Merry Christmas". If they don't celebrate Christmas, it's either ignorant or implies that everyone should be celebating Christmas, which is more than a little offensive. You can parse it however you like, I guess I'm a little rooted in American English.

Happy Holidays

[tavalon]

13. Um, then by your reasoning,

it should be the Jew wishing you a Merry Christmas, and you wishing them a Happy Hanukkah and while you're at it, if you want to "respect my culture" you should wish me Happy Holidays as I apparently get more than one, being that I am a pastaferian, (we worship the Flying Spaghetti Monster, All Hail his Wonderful Noodliness!*). I mean using your own religion's specified greeting seems more self centered than respectful of others.

But since none of us necessarily knows anyone else's religion off the bat, perhaps using a generic statement like Season's Greetings or Happy Holiday might be, in fact, the most culturally sensitive way to go.

And really, maybe, just maybe, this is a manufactured silliness brought to us by the Bread and Circuses crowd. Could it be?! Say it isn't so!



*Actually, I lied for comic effect, I'm actually just a garden variety Wiccan, but there is so much more fun to be had with his noodley appendage and besides I'm also Erisian, or perhaps even a Subgenius, at heart.

[TalkingDog]

16. Respecting each others cultures would be very nice.

I'm not really sure how to respond to your post.

Why would you wish me a Merry Christmas except as an exercise in irony and why do feel the need to reveal (to a person you don't know) for no reason that I can fathom that you are a Christian? And yes, I am aware that Holiday is a contraction of Holy Day. I used them semi-interchangably a couple of times in the letter; which I am assuming you actually read, as your post does not address the thrust of the subject at all; that being the "War on Christmas". And the manufactured frenzy of outrage that ensues every year as a result.

Since there are several Holy Days in the upcoming season, I think Happy Holidays probably covers the bases quite well. But there's nothing like an indignant fundmentalist spitting words in your face to the effect that you are insulting their beliefs by NOT wishing them a Merry Christmas to set one to thinking that perhaps there is some type of Pavolvian knee-jerk reaction going on.

Ummm...I'm glad your children learned about evolution???



My Favorite Master Artist: Karen Parker GhostWoman Studios

[blondeatlast]

5. Excellent. God forbid we should be polite... (at least according to the AFA).

Somehow, I think He appreciates a casual pleasantry from us, regardless of how it's stated.

[zbdent]

9. here's a laugh ... the local Wal Mart that opened up in Cleveland's Steelyard Commons

has a "Holiday Shop" ...

[ThomCat]

10. That is an excellent LTTE.

:applause:

I doubt many of the people who need to read it will bother. It's too long and has too many big words in it. :P

[NanceGreggs]

11. Truly excellent!

:kick: and REC'D!!!

[tavalon]

14. Love your new sig line, Nance!

[central scrutinizer]

12. Remember, Jesus suffered on the cross to save you

... 20% on that big plasma TV you have been coveting at Circuit City.

[Bozita]

15. Superb. Simply superb!

I'd love to read the replies.