The other day I was picking some stuff up from my dry cleaners and we were talking a little about the season, and the woman behind the counter asked “do you celebrate Christmas?” I said I did, so I was busy looking for presents and the like, and I asked her if she did, and she said no (it turns out she is Turkish). I like that people are comfortable talking about whether or not they celebrate Christmas, though this was in Brighton, a suburb of Rochester that has a large Jewish population, so it’s probably not typical.
Is the war on Christmas stuff about telling Muslim and Jewish Americans to suck on this? Or is it just about pissing off liberals? A twofer? I honestly don’t understand.
fasteddie9318
Isn’t it about whipping up an annual Christian “Woe is us!” frenzy to drive up
Pravda’sFox News’ viewership?eyelessgame
Firing up the troops and maintaining a sense of under-siege for the Christianists. It’s not about anybody but themselves.
eyelessgame
“If you’re not being persecuted, you’re being Christian wrong.” Hence, inventing a war against themselves reassures them they’re doing it right. And fasteddie’s correct: it drives up Crazy Bill’s numbers.
MattF
It harkens back, I think, to the epoch when darkies (and tannies and yellowies and Jewies) knew their place. So, it’s about resentment, as usual.
Hill Dweller
It’s part of the right wing’s victim complex. The suckers who vote for republicans are constantly told that their way of life, their very existence, is threatened by ‘secular socialists’.
ET
Its about pissing of liberals. And a general sense that the America of their childhood is going away and all of those “others” are messing things up.
It seems to be part and parcel of the belief that Christians are persecuted in modern American because government, schools, etc. are trying to be inclusive of (or at least not offensive) others who have different faiths or who aren’t Christian.
Name
You can’t solve the threat until you’ve created the threat.
Aet
I always thought it was a dogwhistle against atheists and non-Christians, mixed with the old canard about being the agressor while playing the victim.
zubalove
Dude. You’re in ROCHESTER? I live in Pittsford. How strange. Small world. However, I wouldn’t want to paint it.
Any progressive get-togethers I should know about?
gaz
I think there should be some kind of recompense when these morons step in it and make non-crazy Jesus fans look bad.
The worst part is Christmas isn’t even a Christian holiday. It’s basically a pagan holiday.
Damned tools.
Way to make the Jehovah’s Witnesses look like the reasonable ones.
What a bunch of clowns.
schrodinger's cat
If there ever was a war on Christmas I think Christmas won. An obnoxious woman at the Payroll office, wearing a fugly Christmas sweater was making it a point to aggressively wish everyone Merry Christmas, especially if they looked like international students and was gloating to her co-worker how she was not PC, and won’t be intimidated. Fox News watcher? Why make a friendly gesture like wishing someone Merry Christmas or Happy Holidays into a loaded political gesture. What is wrong with these people.
agrippa
There is no war on Christmas
MattF
And, by the way, the Founding Fathers didn’t have much use for it:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christmas_in_Puritan_New_England
c u n d gulag
GOP POV:
Actually, it’s a three-for.
On top of what you mentioned, it’s a tribal greeting, so we can identify ourselves, and identify others, as Christians.
Wishing someone “Happy Holidays” means that you are a rabid Atheist Liberal Fascist and a supporter of that Darkie Muslim Overlord in the inappropriately named White House.
And don’t ever mention ‘Happy Chutzpah!” or “Happy Kwantas” or whatever they’re called, you J*W-N*GGER loving Heathen Socialist bastards, you.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
Keeping the paranoid–old, white, tribal and frightened–paranoid, so that they vote. And buy books and watch TV shows that confirm their fears and reinforce their tribalism stoked so that they don’t notice “Hey, that Paul Ryan wants to make me pay out of pocket for my blood pressure medication!”
Pissing off liberals and threatening Muslims is just gravy.
philpm
It’s all about filling up the campaign and church coffers and making sure their war imagery stays fresh in everyone’s mind.
Liz
Just another indication of how people who watch FOX news and listen to Limbaugh have no interest in thinking for themselves.
slippy
Christmas is increasingly one of the symbols of an out-of-control materialist obsession, a marvel of nonsense and drivel vs. substance, and a complete bastardization of several holidays rolled into one. It’s a chance for self-righteous right-wingers to thump their chests and they seem to feel the need to turn it into a war when someone says “hey could you please get your obnoxious, shallow, senseless consumerism out of my face?”
gaz
@ET: Also too, I wish people would stop calling them Christian. They’re not.
Much as I dislike the “no true scottsman” argument I really think it’s applicable here.
Can we just call them god-botherers and move on?
beltane
@schrodinger’s cat: Leave it to Fox News viewers to turn “Merry Christmas” into just another way to say “F*ck You” to people they hate.
With wingnuts, ’tis always the season to be a passive-agressive assholes.
DougJ
@zubalove:
I was thinking of trying to put together a Rochester BJ get together.
gaz
@slippy: When has Christmas ever been any different?
It was never a Christian holiday anyway
johnsmith1882
no, it’s about the ‘real’ victims, white christians, and their fear that they’re not going to have the upper hand in every situation, forever and ever.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@schrodinger’s cat:
Pat Peale works in your payroll office? The idea that saying “Merry Christmas” is an act of courage really does sum up your average O’Reiily-bot, I think.
schrodinger's cat
@DougJ: @DougJ: If you give me enough notice may be I can make it. I have friends there, who I am thinking of visiting. They live near Canandegua
gaz
@schrodinger’s cat: Man, I could go on for pages. Easier to ask what’s not wrong with these people. The list would be much shorter.
DougJ
@schrodinger’s cat:
Cool!
fasteddie9318
@gaz: How about Jesus-botherers? I like to be able to differentiate between the various flavors of god-botherers (Yahweh-botherers, Allah-botherers, Shiva-botherers, etc. would follow from this kind of categorization). I think Christianists is sufficient but YMMV.
Punchy
Being that you failed to capitalize and thus proper-noun the word “War”, you clearly have no idea just how important this war is. Also, too, the absence of exclamation points. And times new roman font.
zubalove
@DougJ: Great! I’d be in. Wasn’t there a Drinking Liberally chapter in Rochester at one point?
gaz
@fasteddie9318: as far as I’m concerned, there’s no need to differentiate between the various flavors of nutjob.
The only difference between a Taliban soldier and any other god-botherer is a set of stones and belt full of dynamite.
Brachiator
Neither. It’s about nursing the grudge that Real American White Peoples(tm) must be constantly on guard lest their Real American White Heterosexual Christian Traditional Family Values(tm) be subverted by the Other ™.
I even heard some idiot sports radio host talk some Tebow drivel beginning with “what would happen if a Mooslim football player …”
I wanted to call into the show and say, “Get back to me when there’s a Texas Mooslim University instead of a TCU fielding a team of players….”
rreay
@DougJ:
in for 2.
DougJ
@zubalove:
Yes, I used to be a regular, but it shut down. Trouble finding a good location plus too many Firebagger/Obot battles.
Commenting at Balloon Juice since 1937
If this hasn’t already killed Christmas, then I don’t know what more it will take to do it.
gaz
@Brachiator: They’d have a better quarterback at least.
schrodinger's cat
@gaz: Yes god botherers belonging to different religions have a lot in common, especially how they all treat their women. They also dislike the notion of anyone else having any kind of fun.
slag
It’s about opportunism. If you’re not actively trying to nail yourself to the cross on a regular basis, you’re not a good Christian.
cathyx
Around my neck of the woods are lawn signs in people’s yards that say ‘Keep the Christ in Christmas’.
I assume it means ‘I’m a bigoted white republican and I hate any other religion but mine’.
gaz
@slag: If they were actually trying to nail themselves to a cross, the world would probably be a bit of a better place.
**passes out a hammer, some lumber, and some 9″ nails**
Adding, At least the Taliban variety has the good sense to blow themselves up.
kdaug
@gaz:
What do you mean, “basically”? It is pasting a Jesus face onto the pagan Winter Solstice festival, period.
How many pine trees and boughs of holly in Pakistan?
flukebucket
@Commenting at Balloon Juice since 1937:
Ain’t that the damn truth. That silly picture has been posted all over Facebook by those sad oppressed Christians our country is filled with. It makes me think of the South Park episode where Jesus and Santa get into a fight.
Nostra Dormouse
It’s not just about making the fundies (and anyone who wants to join in the fun) feel threatened (but safe, see — they have a whole news organization protesting for them! How deliciously exciting and cozy), it’s also about taking Christmas away from the rest of us. Think: we celebrate Christmas but we are unwilling to tell Jewish and Muslim neighbors that they are wrong at this time of year to feel separation of church and state should apply. So if we don’t wish to turn Christmas into a jackboot event (“Merry Christmas, you Heathen @#$%s!”) and ram a city-funded creche down our fellow non-Christian taxpayers throats, we are suddenly not part of the “real Christians,” and therefore undeserving of Christmas. Which is, after all, some kind of fight rather than a celebration of peace. Right? Faaaaar right.
schrodinger's cat
I mean why can’t you celebrate more than one winter solstice festival. The more the merrier I say. To me festivals are all about food and drink. Eat drink and be merry. I am sure baby Jeebus would approve!
gaz
@kdaug: Forgive me. The engineer in me hates speaking in absolutes.
Except when I’m calling Veritas/RealityCheck a moron. There’s no wiggle room in that statement =)
gaz
@schrodinger’s cat: Baby Jesus was likely squeezed out of Mary sometime in April, as far as anyone can tell.
slag
@Commenting at Balloon Juice since 1937: That picture of Santa must have been taken from back when he was archbishop of Turkey.
schrodinger's cat
Another thing fundies of religious stripes share is this perpetual feeling of victimhood and a persecution complex.
schrodinger's cat
@gaz: You know who else was born in April?
gaz
@schrodinger’s cat: I’d like to ship these “victims” to china. better yet, north korea, or the mountains of Oaxaca, mexico.
Then they’ll have a clear understanding of what religious persecution actually looks like.
gaz
@schrodinger’s cat: lol!
slag
@gaz:
Truly. Sometimes, I think the real problem with our modern society is that you can’t buy a hair shirt at Target.
Downpuppy
I think you’ll find the answers in Esther 9. After getting Haman hung for his attempt at a pogrom, Esther & Ahaseurus have some fun:
Gimme that old time religion!
DZ
@DouJ:
W did you leave atheists outof your little equation? I’m not accusing you of anything except that there are more atheists in America than all Muslims, Jews, Hindus, Buddhists and Pagans combined. Don’t forget us next time.
kdaug
@gaz: Yup – coincidentally, early spring is also when the Romans held their census (not the dead of winter). And as the story has Ma & Pa Jesus on the road to Bethlehem to be counted in the census…
MikeJ
@slag: Don’t link to a 90 second clip. Link to the whole thing (admittedly broken in to three parts), complete with the intro and outro about blind hunters.
Nutella
Can we convert it to a War on Christmas “Music”? Santa Baby was playing in the coffee shop this morning and now it’s stuck in my head. They seem to play the cheesy Christmas songs at higher volume than their normal background music, too.
DougJ
@DZ:
Don’t most atheists/agnostics celebrate Christmas anyway? Most people I know (e.g. me) are atheists/agnostics who celebrate Christmas.
4tehlulz
“Christmas” is a pagan heathen attempt to distract us from the true birthday of our Lord and Savoir, August 14.
Canuckistani Tom
Meh, I just throw gasoline on the fire with the Astronomer’s greetings of the season
‘Have a Merry Solstice and a Happy Perihelion’
slag
@MikeJ: Ha! “Six to eight, did you say?”
That’s probably my favorite David Sedaris story of all time.
schrodinger's cat
@4tehlulz: What is a Tebow?
Yutsano
@DougJ: Christmas is HUGE in Japan. I highly doubt it’s a Shinto holiday.
@4tehlulz: He has the same birthday as Wayne Chrebet. Shoot me now.
Satanicpanic
What you said + the desire to sell books and keep your audience angry about something.
Enhanced Voting Techniques
@kdaug:
and Joesph slicing that Christmas ham,…
MikeJ
@slag: I’ve was extra bad this year and still didn’t get a free trip to Spain.
kdaug
@DougJ:
If by “celebrate” you mean meeting up with my sisters and their kids, eating/drinking/laughing way too much, and hanging out in the hot tub for an afternoon, then yes.
Piously.
4jkb4ia
No idea. (In fact, thanks, DougJ, you reminded me to check what channel the Knicks are going to be on. It’s TNT. I guess I will go to my parents’ house.)
I am biased towards saying it is “Suck on this”. Someone who cares about the war on Christmas feels that it’s not enough for the rest of us not to go to a public space this time of year that doesn’t have a tree, or not to expect that Christmas music will not be playing in any store. (Well, not the Jewish bookstore, but you know what I mean.) They feel that acknowledging what the rest of us do takes Christmas away from them. I would almost suspect that the big public spectacle makes them feel less put upon by the holiday.
I do not believe I am this excited about the NBA, but the Knicks have a chance at being actually good for the first time in forever.
Roc
It’s about re-affirming the idea that Christians are beset on all sides. That they need to stick together. That The Other really is working to take away all they hold dear.
If people aren’t steeped in that narrative, it’s harder to get them to hate brown people and elect union-busting, tax-cutting extremists under the guise of protecting their children from Hollywood smut and PC cops.
schrodinger's cat
@Enhanced Voting Techniques: I don’t know about Pakistan but Indian Christians from Goa make the bestest rum and raisin cake for Christmas and serve it with homemade wine.
Feudalism Now!
We need to unleash the Krampus on all these fools. Krampus makes the Grinch look like a piker.
slag
@MikeJ: I hear that. Maybe if you try really hard next year, they’ll at least kick you and beat you with a switch. If you’re lucky.
Cheryl from Maryland
Twofer plus general assholedness.
My elementary school (Virginia)had mandatory Xmas activities, including making cards for your parents; plus the parents of the two Jewish kids in class had to raise a huge stink to get their kids excused for the High Holidays.
Don’t want those times back at all. Io Saturnalia is my greeting of choice.
Yutsano
@MikeJ: You don’t want to go to Spain until the Euro dies anyway. Then Spain and Portugal will get cheap. Ridiculously cheap. Bring back the peso now I say!
4jkb4ia
So I forgot that the Kollel has taken some kind of recreation facility in St. Peters for their Hanukkah party, which will be on December 25, and I assume all the trees will be put away.
Trakker
What I find sad is that back in the 1950s when I was a wee lad, my fundamentalist parents taught all us kids to respect other people’s religions and to only say Merry Christmas to those you knew were Christians and to say Happy Holidays when in doubt. And this in a town that was 98% Christian!
If my parents were alive today I KNOW they would be leaders in the “Say Merry Christmas Louder if you think they might be non-Christians” movement. Fundamentalists, though generally nice people, are basically insecure and the Republican Party/Fox News/Limbaugh/RW astro-turf groups have hit paydirt picking their insecurity scabs.
What a difference 60 years makes.
cckids
@schrodinger’s cat:
Oh, yeah. The people I know who do not celebrate Christmas don’t get bothered & pissy when wished a Merry Christmas. They accept it in the spirit in which it is offered. Much like myself, as an atheist, when my kid is in hospital, I don’t get angry or explanatory when people tell me “God Bless”, or that they are praying for us. Why shit on someone’s good wishes?
And conversely, why turn what should be good wishes into a weapon?
Yevgraf
Wish me a Merry Christmas, goddammit.
Brachiator
@Downpuppy:
Oddly enough, honest scholars admit that the Book of Esther is adapted from a pagan story, and likely has little to do with any actual event in Jewish history.
The name “Esther” should be a giveaway, and is likely a variation on Ishtar. And there is that little thing about the name of the deity never being mentioned in the story.
I had a religious studies professor who made some people’s head explode when he suggested that the cake eaten at Purim, the triangular pastry hamantashen was really derived from a fertility symbol. The pastry is referred to as Haman’s head, Haman’s ears, or Haman’s pouches, but this is the really, really, really cleaned up version. Think about it.
@Yutsano:
On one of my first trips to India, I learned that many school children had the holiday off, a holdover from the days of the British Raj, even though the number of people of that religion is tiny.
And at the hotel where we stayed there was a huge celebration, complete with a Hindu Santa.
And my former neighbors freely, openly, happily celebrated Christmas along with Diwali.
schrodinger's cat
@cckids:
True, I am an agnostic too and it usually doesn’t bother me at all, if someone wishes me Merry Christmas or Happy Holidays. This particular woman was being over the top obnoxious about it and then patting herself on the back for being brave. I just found that rather silly, that’s all.
Tonybrown74
There was a question posted on CNN’s website asking atheists if they (we) celebrate any holidays.
Seriously.
Because all holidays are religious in nature …
*sigh*
Snowball
@gaz:
Amen to that. If these loud, arrogant people are Christian, then count me out. They don’t believe in the same God that I believe in. My God believes in turning the other cheek, love your enemies, tolerance and all that stuff that clearly Bill O’Reilly and his friends don’t seem to even know what it is.
wasabi gasp
Finally deploying the mistletoe is welcome relief after eleven months of unsuccessful preemptive Heimlich maneuvers.
OzoneR
Whenever a Christian nut screams about how stores are not adequately praising little baby Jesus in their signs advertising sales of material things grown-up Jesus told us to shun, remind them “Jesus is not the reason for the season. German pagans celebrating winter are the reason for the season. Jesus was born in March”
Trakker
@cckids: “…I don’t get angry or explanatory when people tell me “God Bless”, or that they are praying for us. Why shit on someone’s good wishes?”
It depends. I live in a big city where probably a good quarter of the people are non-believers, and it annoys me a bit that believers just assume they have the right to say things like that knowing that many of us don’t welcome it (the religious talk, not the good wishes).
Origuy
@Brachiator: My co-workers in Bangalore get Christmas, Diwali, and Eid al-Fitr off.
SpotWeld
The second best thing a company can do is create a product people want that addresses a problem. The best thing a company can do is convince everyone they have a problem that can be addressed by thier product.
And the “War on Christmas” is that sort of problem. Since it’s an invention then there will never be an issue of it being eradicated by the effectivness of the product in question.
pragmatism
its difficult for these victims when the entirety of existence doesn’t validate their world view. its a zero sum game (like everything these days) and the slope that is slippery justifies all.
Amir Khalid
In Malaysia there’s a tradition of holding an open house for family and friends to mark the major festival you celebrate — Eid al-Fitri if Muslim, Deepavali if Hindu, Christmas, or Lunar New Year if you’re Chinese and traditional. My old Malay-language teacher from primary school, a Catholic (and father of one of my oldest friends) once said Christmas is for everybody. He meant, of course, that it’s a season to extend generosity and goodwill to all, without exception. The kind of people who say “Merry Christmas” as an aggressive gesture toward non-Christians would have been quite mystifying to my old teacher.
FlipYrWhig
IMHO the first stirrings of “war on Xmas” idiocy were an extension of “political correctness” flummery. It’s like, “I can’t call women girls, I can’t say blacks can run fast, I can’t call gays homos, and now I can’t even say “Christmas” because someone might be offended? This is where it’s going to end.”. I’ve heard some otherwise fairly liberal-minded people making snippy remarks about how, “oh, excuse me, we’re not supposed to say ‘Christmas’ anymore,” as though it had become the equivalent of “Negro.”
different-church-lady
It’s about getting their persecution complex on. One of the rare places in the wingnut mindset where it’s actually personal rather than just pissing off hippies.
geg6
It’s all about the “victimization” of evangelical Christians and all other stupid and perpetually angry Christians of any denomination.
I go out of my way to refuse to discuss the word Christmas with them. I happily chirp “happy holidays!” to them and watch the steam come out of their ears.
One of our ambassador students (they give tours to prospective students/visitors) was in the office with just me the other day and he started going off about how he hates that people say happy holidays and how the only reason for the winter holiday is because of Jesus and all the same tired old bullshit propaganda. So when he got ready to leave, he said “Oh, G, merry Christmas to you!” I came back with “Happy holidays, John,” as cheery as can be. He looked at me and asked if I was just joking with him. I said no, I’m an atheist. And that the winter solstice has been celebrated by people long before that guy Jesus was just a twinkle in Joseph’s eye. And so, no, Jesus isn’t the only reason for the season.
It shook him, I know. Because he really likes me and this was a piece of information he had not known or even suspected about me. I don’t think he ever thought he could like an atheist or would consider one to be a good person. And now he knows better.
different-church-lady
@OzoneR:
Can you imagine what would happen if corporate America found out about that and we had to celebrate Christmas TWICE a year?
The Snarxist Formerly Known as Kryptik
Unfortunately, as I’ve noted earlier, my circle of friends have gone full-bore nuts with the War on Christmas after I linked to the nuttery in Rhode Island about stupid fundies protesting trees in the statehouse being called ‘Holiday Trees’ by singing ‘O Christmas Tree’.
The worst is that these are or were reasonably moderate or liberal people, and yet I’m the big giant fucking alien hippie for not recognizing the systematic erasure of the word ‘Christmas’ from everything thanks to the Super Evil PC Brigade and Kwanzaa.
If it wasn’t for places like this, I’d wonder if I ever even belonged in this goddamn country in the first place because apparently I’m a big giant fucking alien to everyone I know in person.
different-church-lady
@geg6:
Personally, I don’t care about the Christian oppression part nearly as much as the incessant demands to be fucking merry, happy and joyful all the damn time.
Stacy
My husband grew up on Brighton,and I grew up in Fairport. Now we live in Prague, CZ for the last 6 months. The school our kids go to has 61 different countries represented so we’ve experienced a lot of different ways to celebrate the season. I have heard one American here say “can I say Merry Christmas or will someone be offended?” I wonder if before the “WAR ON CHRISTMAS!” (feels like it should be in caps)if Americans here would have said that? I don’t think they meant it any other way but matter-of-fact. I think it is a twofer in the US for the conservatives.
FlipYrWhig
@The Snarxist Formerly Known as Kryptik: I’m in the public sector in Virginia, where our governor is the smarmy Pat Robertson-allied Bob McDonnell. We got an email from the gov about the capitol tree. It called the event… “Capitol tree lighting.” No “Christmas” anywhere. No scandal, no protest, no nothing. I considered forwarding it to Fox just to see what would happen.
FlipYrWhig
@Stacy: Christmas is American now? Oy gevalt.
The Moar You Know
Suck on this.
I’m already dealing with the far-too-aggressive “Merry Christmas” snarlings from the godbotherers. Very, very annoying.
Ben Cisco
Once per week, people around our nation recognize the day of Thursday. Thursday has been central to the American week since the founding. But secularists have completely ripped the true meaning and purpose of Thursday: honoring Thor, the Norse god of thunder.
__
If you can’t honor Thor, then keep your godless claptrap out of my workweek. Stop the war on THORSday.
The Snarxist Formerly Known as Kryptik
@FlipYrWhig:
But see, they didn’t use ‘Holiday’, therefore they can’t just assume it’s part of the godless conspiracy to erase Christmas from everything once and for all.
But seriously…it’s just amazing how this has somehow fucking grown into the biggest of ‘serious’ issues. I tried to tell said friends that obsessing over the word rather than the spirit kind of went against the whole point of Christmas, as well as the fact that…you know, it’s still fucking called Christmas, and not Capitol Holiday Spirit Day or something. But no…apparently just like everything else, everyone can be yanked to the right by one fucking thing and stay there forever and anon, but it’s impossible to tug anyone leftward on anything because OMG FUCKING HIPPIES ERASING CHRISTMAS!!
Brachiator
@Ben Cisco:
Thank the Deity that we have that song celebrating Friday, since this day is based on “the reconstructed name or epithet of a hypothesized Common Germanic love goddess giving rise to both Frigg and Freyja,” as da Wiki notes.
pseudonymous in nc
In the early days of colonial America, gangs of Puritans would throw rocks through the windows of Anglican and Catholic churches celebrating Christmas.
It was Sinterklaas last week in the Netherlands, which is when the kids get their presents from Sinterklaas and his dubious henchmen; it’s St Lucy’s Day today, when Scandos get their saffron buns on.
There is a winter festival inherited from places where it is fucking dark and miserable at this time of year, and everybody could do with a good party. That is all.
Brachiator
@The Moar You Know:
I like Godbotherer’s Pizza.
Downpuppy
@Brachiator: Esther is just what I read this morning. I’ve been keeping a King James in the bathroom, and it’s full of crazy, violent stuff.
Point being, I’m talking about fundies, not scholars. Some of the people who say they believe every word of the Bible have actually read it.
Which is terrifying.
J.W. Hamner
All I know is I’d love go all jihad on the speakers around our building blaring terrible Christmas music. Luckily we found out how to turn off the speakers in our lab or I probably would have gone insane by now.
Schlemizel
@Ben Cisco:
I’d point out that Quakers used to number the days to avoid this sort of idolatry. Instead of Sunday, Monday, Tuesday they did First Day, Second Day, Third Day.
Which is all fine and good but what if First Day falls on the second?
Ben Cisco
@Brachiator:
Indeed.
Schlemizel
@geg6:
More likely he now thinks of you as the enemy and one who must be guarded against. But it was still the right thing to do.
Villago Delenda Est
@FlipYrWhig:
It’s a war on politeness, basically. If you can’t offend people, you’re being repressed. It’s a vile totalitarian infringement on your freedom that you can’t call some brown person “nigger” at the top of your lungs.
Origuy
@Downpuppy:
I’ve been reading R. Crumb’s graphic book version of Genesis.
dcdl
My in-laws are Buddhist and celebrate Christmas. It’s what ‘Americans’ do. Obviously for them and actually me it’s about giving, fellowship, goodwill, whatever you want Christmas to be. That’s what I tell my kids.
El Cid
When I was
a poor black childin school in the rural South, all sorts of religious types (friends, neighbors, fellow churchgoers) were just basically angry at the degree of secularism they encountered.Viewing the teaching of evolution as an oppressive move to eliminate Christians (and, yes, Christianity too, but there was indeed that personal paranoia) isn’t much removed from thinking that Christians are under attack because every cashier doesn’t scream into your face “THIS IS A HOLY DAY FOR CHRIST HOW DO YOU LIKE THAT!!!”
Stacy
I wonder if the people offended by people wishing them a “Happy Holidays” instead of “Merry Christmas” bash in their car stereos when Bing Crosby sing “Happy Holidays.”
El Cid
I tell you what, though — I sure as hell ain’t going to mouth off too much about the few remaining paid holidays I got.
You give me paid time off for a holiday of another religion, I’ll gladly take it.
Brachiator
@Downpuppy:
That’s what makes it interesting and fun. As long as you don’t take it literally.
@dcdl:
Thanks for the reminder. I gotta put this on my “must read” list.
Barry
@gaz: I think it’s time to jettison all the “they’re not Christian” crap. They call themselves christian, they organize as christian, whether they follow the teachings of the gospels is a side issue. It’s like arguing that Erich Honeker and Nicolae Ceaucescou weren’t “socialist”. At a certain point that hair-splitting is not just beside the point, it’s self-defeating. If the “Chistians” want to rehabilitate “Christianity” that’s fine, that’s they’re project, let them have it. These tools need to be called out for their bad acts and corruption of my country’s public culture, and if a few sincere “Christians” smart at the association, let them raise their voices.
Karen
I’m Jewish but even though I’m in Montgomery County, MD where there actually is a Jewish community, I don’t live in it so I automatically wish people “Merry Christmas.” I do it to be friendly. When people wish me “Merry Christmas” they’re being friendly and I’m cool with it.
What pisses me off – reasonably or unreasonably – is when people who KNOW I’m Jewish still wish me “Merry Christmas.”
When friends do this, they may not mean it that way but it’s almost like they’re saying that my religion is not only unworthy of their mention but that it’s just an insignificant thing that doesn’t matter.
Look, I know Chanukah is not as glamorous or super fantastic as Christmas. It can’t compete. But it makes it even worse when people who are my friends can’t even humor me and wish me either “Happy Chanukah” or “Happy Holidays” or even “Seasons Greetings.”I go out of my way to buy two kinds of cards, Christmas cards and Seasons Greetings cards for my gentile friends.
But apparently, even though my Christian friends can’t even humor my silly little religion, I’m expected to be respectful of theirs because this is a “Christan nation” as I’m constantly reminded.
The War on Christmas attitude is really that they’re offended that any other religion is allowed to exist and the forced conversions Mike Huckabee wants to do have not happened yet.
Chet
Every year when O’Reilly and co. trot out this bullshit meme, I find myself wishing fervantly that I could get them in a room with an aunt of mine, who’s the most batshit-insane ultra-fundy God-botherer I know, and who makes it a point at family gatherings every December to harangue us about how Christmas is unbiblical and pagan and Romish and something no TrueChristian™ should have anything to do with.
Saying “Merry Christmas” to my Bible-punching aunt is something you most assuredly don’t want to do if you can help it. Ditto for “Happy Easter” each spring. (TrueChristians™ call it “Resurrection Sunday”, and don’t you forget it.)
OzoneR
@Karen:
Are you kidding? Eight nights of celebration. It’s like college.
You guys kept the lamps burning for eight days. My Christian father blows a fuse every time he plugs in a night light.
Cris (without an H)
@Karen: My wife doesn’t mind that nobody wishes her happy Hanukkah — in fact, what she really resents is that people do wish her happy Hanukkah but never take note of Yom Kippur or Pesach, thereby elevating Hanukkah’s importance.
Cause really, the only reason Hanukkah gets any notice at all from the goyim is because of its proximity to Christmas.
4jkb4ia
@OzoneR:
But what you are celebrating next to Christmas is small potatoes. You are celebrating the ability to defeat total spiritual annihilation and to fight another day. My husband refuses to make a big deal of Hanukkah because the Maccabees lost in the end. They let in the Romans, and the Temple that they saved was destroyed anyway.
4jkb4ia
@Cris (without an H):
Cosign.
LanceThruster
Driving home last Friday night, I saw a big sign on the fence of the ranch down the street from my place.
It said,
“Merry CHRIST-mas”.
Nothing says warm holiday wishes like a steaming fresh pile of, “FU, if you think you can make my invisible buddy play second fiddle to anyone!”
What sort of egomaniac thinks his birthday songs and observance by the masses needs to last all goddamned month?
The commercial campaigns also ring even more hollow as the economic plight so many face this season does not even register; just the predictable call for conspicuous consumption as a tried and true path to happiness (and make the frenzy set for a specific date so the items can all be drastically reduced in price after you’ve already paid for it)..
gaz
@Barry: Sorry man, but I’m not ready to hold all christians to account for the actions and beliefs of some purityrannical (see what I did there?) God botherers that are a US phenomenon.
The United States is not representative of the world. The oldschool southern baptists and evangelicals are OUR problem.
pattonbt
I say Happy Holidays because I am lazy. You’ve got New years at the same time, most people take most of that time off and I don’t want to say “Merry Christmas and Happy New Year”.
So it’s “Happy Holidays” and I’m out.
If I see someone the day before Xmas I might say “Have a nice Christmas” or something like that. And then repeat if its New Years eve. But Happy Holidays gets both in one go. Simple.
AA+ Bonds
Yes
28 Percent
It’s about feeling individually powerful within a “persecuted” group, without any of the inconveniences that usually accompany persecution. They’re discrimination tourists. They’re getting the experience (and in their own minds, the cred and the get-out-of-guilt-free card) of being an oppressed but uprising minority without experiencing any of the discomforts that come with participating in an actual minority group or counter-culture.