Some damn organization calling itself the National Republican Congressional Committee has joined the vile War on Christmas. Suit up Patriots! Let’s get ’em.
LOOKING FOR LIFE BEYOND CABLE NEWS AND FINDING THAT RESISTANCE IS FUTILE
You can have wealth concentrated in the hands of a few, or democracy. But you cannot have both.
- Louis BrandeisTension is who you think you should be. Relaxation is who you are.
- Chinese ProverbRecent Comments
Whatever Works 
All in the name of inclusiveness (selectively applied, of course).
LikeLike
The War on Christmas isn’t in fact a war on the holiday, but is the secularization of what to many of us is a religious holiday. For better or worse that is a real thing, but Christians brought this on themselves.
The theocratic conservatives who complain of the war on Christmas had no compunction about using the holiday as a way to juice their bottom lines by encouraging the purchase of present and gifts by one and all, including the non-believers. Now the war fruits of these efforts have come home to roost as non-believer participate and the holiday become less religious in tone. If you don’t want a secularized Christmas, then don’t use your sacred holiday to hock merchandise to one and all is the lesson.
The whole war on Christmas outcry would have some weight if Christian merchants were to plead with the non-believers to not patronize their shops to purchase presents as part of a secular holiday. I’m not holding my breath for this to happen however.
LikeLike
bruce – the first year that O’Reilly started that ‘War on Christmas’ schtick on his show, he was outraged at the use of Happy Holidays as a substitute for Merry Christmas. He kept finding stories to use every night about someone or some organization that didn’t say Merry Christmas anymore.
And then . . . cue the drumrolls . . . someone noticed – and publicized – that at his online store selling ‘O’Reilly Factor’ merchandise there was nary a mention of Christmas – it was all about “Holiday Gifts”.
Hypocrite of the first order.
LikeLike
The war on Christmas and Christianity in general is quite real. Even as a Pagan I can see that. It has to do with the Godless trying to forbid any mention of Christmas.
That being said, Bruce has an equally valid point about Christians placing the Almighty Dollar before the Almighty as it were and we’re part and parcel of the secularization of Christmas.
Of course my Holy Day is Yule and it’s a somber time, not one of celebration.
As a final note, to me the war on Christmas is a war on America. That, in and of itself, should make the Christians happy either since “my” Christmas has everything to do with Americana and nothing to do with their religion beyond the shapes of some of the decorations, the content of some of the television specials, and a few verses here and there in music.
LikeLike
Just to be clear, where you wrote:
“That, in and of itself, should make the Christians happy either”
did you mean:
“That, in and of itself, should not make the Christians happy either”
LikeLike
YEP! Thanks! Commenting before coffee is fully absorbed isn’t wise but I keep doing it.
LikeLike
That guy is pathetic …. (and I couldn’t resist).
LikeLike
The phrase “The War on Christmas” originated at FOX News with Bill O’Reilly maybe six or seven years ago. It probably though should have been called “The War on ‘Merry Christmas'” since the opposing army was something called “Happy Holidays”.
It got the troops riled up and had nothing whatsoever to do with bemoaning the commercialization of what was once largely considered to be a religious celebration (albeit one the celebration of which was forbidden on this soil by the Pilgrim settlers, a harsh bunch if there ever were one). It was inspired by the intrusion of ‘the other’ into the perfect American retail narrative of Santa – and the removal of all those pretty nativities with blond Virgin Mary’s and all the little porceline Jesuses from government buildings.
In any case, in the Catholicism of my youth, Christmas was not solemn and had no particularly sacred place in the Church calendar. That was reserved for Easter and Holy Week – truly solemn and sacred observances. Except for those damn Pilgrims, Christmas – like the Solstice and Chanukka (how many spellings are there anyway?) has always been about bringing some light into the short dark winter days and about bringing hope that soon that darkness would ease.
LikeLike
On the general, historical celebration of Christmas and its importance to Christianity pre-Modern era, you’re absolutely right. It was not a major religious holiday until fairly recently.
As for Chanukka and Yule / Winter Solstice – you’re a bit off. Chanukka was about perseverance and maintaining one’s cultural / religious identity under foreign oppression and Yule varies a lot but was and is often a solemn holy day of propitiating the Gods for the return of warm weather.
LikeLike
True enough jonolan, but there is significance in the fact that they all are celebrated at about the same time – close to 12/21. And even with the historical antecedents, Chanukka is after all called ‘The Festival of Lights’. And the Yule (and the ‘log’) are also about hope for a return to longer days (and therefore warmer days).
But whichever, whatever, I do love the whole circus, except for the merchandizing part. And I hope for you that some of the fun creeps back in!
LikeLike
There’s no date significance in Chanukka. It’s celebrated over the 8 eights of the reconsecration of the Second Temple during the Maccabean Revolt against the occupying Seleucid Empire. Not coincidentally, it also is dated to exactly 2 years after the Seleucids desecrated that temple by making Pagan sacrifices on its alter.
LikeLike
Okay – we’ll leave the Jews out of this one . . . 😆
LikeLike