Thursday, December 09, 2004
Say the Name, Dammit
Every year at Christmastime, somewhere around my hometown, the local Knights of Columbus chapter puts up a billboard featuring an old-fashioned-looking painting of the Nativity with the words "Keep Christ in Christmas." This year, they're getting some company. Emboldened by their supposed part in Bush's 48-state, 40-million vote landslide, the wingnuts have declared war on the phrases "happy holidays" and "season's greetings." One group is boycotting Federated Department Stores (Macys and Bloomingdales) for not using "Merry Christmas" in its advertising. A columnist at Concerned Women for America suggests that "happy holidays" is bigoted (although he never quite explains why he thinks so).
This is the sort of mischief that befalls people with too much time on their hands. Some of the people involved surely believe that if "Merry Christmas" were drummed into people's heads often enough, it would make them come to Jesus. But many more of the "save Merry Christmas" people are likely on board with the campaign as yet another way to bludgeon people they don't like--rubbing "Christmas" in the face of Jews, for example, or Kwanzaa-celebrators, or atheists, to remind them of who's really in charge in this country. So it's another manifestation of the loudmouthed bully strut we've witnessed from the wingnuts since the morning of November 3.
However, if they're serious, the "save Merry Christmas" people have got a lot more work to do. Why not get Santa Claus out of all Christmas advertising, and all secular Christmas music off the airwaves? And those Christmas creches with adorable cats or snowmen, like the ones The Mrs. collects? The Holy Family was a long, dark-haired woman and a man with a beard (and both Caucasian, by the way), so anything else shows disrespect for Christians. And don't be buying any damn iPods or XBoxes as gifts--gold, frankincense, and myrrh only. You shouldn't display snow in anything associated with Christmas because it doesn't snow in Palestine. The only fruit permissable in fruitcake should be those fruits growing naturally in the Middle East. Rudolph? Reindeer jerky. Frosty? Water my plants. No silver bells, no Christmas trees, no eggnog--it's all got to go because it's disrespectful to the original religious reason for the season.
It's the People's Republic of Christ, bubba, and we're just living in it.
Every year at Christmastime, somewhere around my hometown, the local Knights of Columbus chapter puts up a billboard featuring an old-fashioned-looking painting of the Nativity with the words "Keep Christ in Christmas." This year, they're getting some company. Emboldened by their supposed part in Bush's 48-state, 40-million vote landslide, the wingnuts have declared war on the phrases "happy holidays" and "season's greetings." One group is boycotting Federated Department Stores (Macys and Bloomingdales) for not using "Merry Christmas" in its advertising. A columnist at Concerned Women for America suggests that "happy holidays" is bigoted (although he never quite explains why he thinks so).
This is the sort of mischief that befalls people with too much time on their hands. Some of the people involved surely believe that if "Merry Christmas" were drummed into people's heads often enough, it would make them come to Jesus. But many more of the "save Merry Christmas" people are likely on board with the campaign as yet another way to bludgeon people they don't like--rubbing "Christmas" in the face of Jews, for example, or Kwanzaa-celebrators, or atheists, to remind them of who's really in charge in this country. So it's another manifestation of the loudmouthed bully strut we've witnessed from the wingnuts since the morning of November 3.
However, if they're serious, the "save Merry Christmas" people have got a lot more work to do. Why not get Santa Claus out of all Christmas advertising, and all secular Christmas music off the airwaves? And those Christmas creches with adorable cats or snowmen, like the ones The Mrs. collects? The Holy Family was a long, dark-haired woman and a man with a beard (and both Caucasian, by the way), so anything else shows disrespect for Christians. And don't be buying any damn iPods or XBoxes as gifts--gold, frankincense, and myrrh only. You shouldn't display snow in anything associated with Christmas because it doesn't snow in Palestine. The only fruit permissable in fruitcake should be those fruits growing naturally in the Middle East. Rudolph? Reindeer jerky. Frosty? Water my plants. No silver bells, no Christmas trees, no eggnog--it's all got to go because it's disrespectful to the original religious reason for the season.
It's the People's Republic of Christ, bubba, and we're just living in it.
