After reading the umpteenth blog post or news story about the war on Christmas, I’ve come to the conclusion that I must be residing in some bright and shining corner of the twilight zone.
I have been openly wished a heartfelt Merry Christmas at least 3oo times within the past two weeks by every single clerk, public employee or personal acquaintance I’ve had the pleasure to come across. The check out lady at the grocery store confidently told me to have a wonderfully blessed day. Of course she’s been doing that to every customer for the past seven years, but I thought it was worth a mention.
Nativity scenes decorate every sixth yard within a five-mile radius, Salvation Army pots are overflowing with generosity, traditional carols are playing in every store.
We’re completely lit up to the hilt with Christmas displays, even the scraggly cedars lining the byways and highways have been sloppily garlanded and decked with ornaments by neighborhood kids. No grumpy road crews dismantle these joyful displays of the season, it’s become one of our city’s nice little traditions, a genuine smile maker given to us by our children.
Christmas is exploding with good will and kind cheer in my part of the city. It hasn’t been forgotten or secularized and nobody’s waging any sort of war against this cherished celebration.
I guess I’m just very lucky to live in a peaceful part of the country.
I think it’s a momentum thing, along with “It’s December, I know what I am supposed to be bitching about this month.” Because I am with you: The only evidence I have seen so far of the war on Christmas has been from people complaining about the war on Christmas.
You’ll probably get fed some links here, though, from people who have been out looking for the war on Christmas, making sure they don’t go a season without it.
Merry Christmas, Daphne!
Merry Christmas, Andy!
Hmmm…. Seattle and Austin, two uber liberal cities, openly celebrating Christmas. I wonder where these wars are taking place if we’re living in peace zones?
Let the grumps come, I’ll wrap them up in tinsel and smack ‘em around with my neighbor’s baby jesus.
Don’t know if I’m a “grump”; if someone wants to sit out the season entirely, or enjoy it while disbelieving or believing in some other deity, I couldn’t possibly care less. (And the people who do care about that and start manufacturing conflict, I got a feeling there’s a lot more made-up fiction involved in that phenomenon, than in the WoXmas.)
But I’ll tell you what really frosts me about stories like this…and it’s in my archives somewhere, I’m just too lazy and overworked at the moment to hunt it down. One: The expression of belief, in Jesus, God or Santa, is treated like a toxic thing, like some offended person somewhere is being put through some unspeakable horror because there’s a Christmas tree on the town square. Well, nut up. If the rest of us have to put up with Westboro Baptists picketing soldiers’ funerals, ya know…nut up.
And two: I’ve been watching for exceptions to this, and haven’t found any yet. The person who’s really manufacturing the conflict, is some busybody, unelected, unaccountable bureaucrat.
Come to think on it, there’s a three: Nobody’s really offended. Unless it’s another busybody, safely anonymous, writing a busybody letter somewhere behind the cloak of anonymity. One stinkin’ person at a time. “We received a complaint…” Hey…how many complaints do I have about things, that I’m expected to just choke on because the people who share my complaint haven’t managed to achieve critical mass just yet? But if you’re a secular type you can write one letter all by your lonesome and turn the town on its head. What — well, I’ll keep my language clean because I’m still waiting for Santa and want to be on the right list.
And on that note, back to work I go.
Hey grumpy, I considered writing the story of why our elementary school has Winter Holiday parties and multi-culti plays rather than traditional Christmas fare.
But I figured someone would call me anti-Semitic for ripping on the fifty plus Jewish parents who coalesced into a fury of offended rage at the Christmas tree in the lobby, santa on the class party plates and a school play that told a brief story of Jesus along with singing children prancing across the stage dressed as reindeer, elves and angels.
Multiple PTA and school board meetings were held to listen to their grievances before the district capitulated to their anti-Christmas agenda. God forbid a tiny percentage of religious Jews attending the school should be offended by the display of a fucking Christmas tree.
Now we have a sanitized version of the season. A book of rules is hand delivered to every class mom in charge of organizing a Winter Party, songs are pre-selected, decorations are kept to snowflakes and everyone walks on eggshells to not offend.
It seems there is a new universal human right that is central to this, although nobody wants to discuss it openly. From all the information that has found its way to me, I infer this brand new universal human right has something to do with not being ignored. As a member of a class, not as an individual…if I decide to start a new religious sect that is devoted to the belief that the entire universe is a bacteria swimming in an anal polyp of a giant platypus, my rights are being violated if someone, somewhere, is unaware of our existence.
Other people don’t have to believe in the platypus, but they damn sure well better believe in us!
Being evil and weird in all kinds of ways, I think the solution to all this conflict would be to get rid of that brand new human right — let’s go back to saying, it’s okay for other people not to believe in your new sect. If it’s okay for you not to believe in Jesus, then strangers don’t have to believe in you.
Let’s stop discriminating against deities! But like I said…that’s just me.
Yes, this universal need to be officially coddled and recognized is beyond tiresome. A healthy dose of go fuck your precious self needs to be expressed as matter of course.
[...] the first two when I was writing about this a short time ago, and thought of a third one as I was commenting at blogger friend Daphne’s [...]