After a disappointing ceasefire the last few holiday seasons, TWOC is on like mothefucker. With this:
Fox News host Bill O’Reilly dedicated Monday’s “Talking Points Memo” segment to denouncing what he called a “‘Happy Holidays’ syndrome” propagated by “secular progressives” and “pressure groups like the ACLU.”
Fuck yeah. This is the kind of conservatism I love. It sure beats the hell out of hearing Bobo and Ron Fournier lecture us about leadership and bipartisanship.
Zam
Conservatives seem to have no place for non-Christians. This just proves how open and accepting they are and it’s the liberals who hate freedom of religion.
Chyron HR
How are sales on the “Happy Hanukkah is what Christ-killers say.” shirts?
EconWatcher
These are your buddies, Mr. Adelson.
Robert Paehlke
Happy Holidays to all.
JPL
I’m going to have a Happy, Happy, Holiday….
black_onion
NRCC is liberal.
http://wonkette.com/535544/nrcc-pretty-much-full-of-liberals-as-recently-as-2010-according-to-nrcc
IowaOldLady
It just floors me the way they decided to take offense at this bland marketing message.
Also, I want that shirt.
Belafon
We need a better slogan for Christmas.
How about “Happy Mammonmas”, which would be in the true spirit of the holiday? Maybe “Merry Blendermas” or “Merry GoldNecklacemas”.
Keith P
My God, there is TONS of money to be made off conservatives. I could start making t-shirts and retire before 40.
Matt McIrvin
If we won’t actually give them a War On Christmas, they’re determined to start one.
burnspbesq
In today’s episode of “how the hell did this case get all the way to the Supreme Court,” the Justices will hear argument in a case involving a rabbi who claims he was improperly booted from an airline’s frequent-flyer program.
http://www.scotusblog.com/2013/11/argument-preview-dusting-off-contracts-treatises-to-resolve-preemption-dispute/
For legal-minutiae junkies, this is the stuff that has only been stepped on once.
debg
Amanda Marcotte is taking suggestions for more shirt slogans–check out her post and the comments.
Gex
It’s also dangerously close to stealing a line from 30 Rock. But then, they love to steal from pop culture for their campaigns…denouncing pop culture.
Belafon
Can the back say “Ka-ching is what conservatives say”?
Russ
THE N@@@@@clang is comin’ for your Xmas.
burnspbesq
@EconWatcher:
Shelly is familiar with the type. Recall that his core business is separating fools from their money.
Dedc79
You’ve got a religious holiday that’s evolved into little more than a one month shopping spree for many people and it’s “happy holidays” that has them upset?
The Red Pen
@Zam: True, and it’s really painful to watch conservative Jews on Free Republic bow and scrape to the predominant culture. G-d forbid they deny anyone their American right to wish them a Merry Christmas.
They spend a lot of time trying to figure out how to characterize all of the evil Obama-loving Jews in some way that leaves them in good standing.
Oh, and Jews who don’t support Israel uncritically? Those are the self-hating Jews.
burnspbesq
@Dedc79:
Category error there. You’ve mistaken the average “Christian” winger for someone who genuinely cares about Christ.
Belafon
@Dedc79: Shhhhh. People aren’t supposed to know that there’s a difference between shopping and celebrating the birth of Jesus.
ranchandsyrup
TNC had a post a while back where he defined an asshole as “A person who demands that all social interaction happen on their terms.” Pretty much sums up the WOC.
negative 1
@debg: “look I’ve found a way to reduce unemployment” is what liberals say.
maya
Whaa? “Merry Christmas” now hangs over their butts?
Product placement, RNCC, product placement.
Roger Moore
@Belafon:
I think it’s closer to “Fuck You, Hippie Scum”.
C.V. Danes
To which the conservatives say, of course:
“If you don’t like my god then you can just suck on it.”
hedgehog the occasional commenter
Happy Festivus to all! Is it too early to start the airing of grievances?
Linda Featheringill
@burnspbesq:
Actually, you’re quite correct. Perhaps we should be more careful.
IIRC, the New Testament didn’t mention how important it was to call holidays by acceptable names. Or the Old Testament, either.
I think there was something about taking food away from poor people, though.
Cacti
Keep the “Christ” in a holiday that Jesus never commanded his followers to observe.
Roger Moore
@hedgehog the occasional commenter:
At Balloon Juice, it’s never too early to start airing grievances.
ranchandsyrup
@hedgehog the occasional commenter: Rhetorical question about Balloon Juice is rhetorical.
Suffern ACE
I won’t stop until the last vestiges of this pagan Adonis holiday is removed from the Christian calendar.
Mike in NC
@Keith P:
It’s all about the grift. Right-wing blowhards like Michael Savage and Ann Coulter don’t believe a word of the bullshit they spew, but it sure rakes in the dough. We’ve got three weeks to go until Xmas, so Bill O’Reilly could conceivably crank out yet another book or two.
schrodinger's cat
@hedgehog the occasional commenter: No such thing, every day is Festivus in the Balloon Juice comment section.
srv
“My God has more guns than yours does”
One I saw yesterday in TX:
“I support a woman’s right to choose (revolver or pistol)”
In other news, a relative tells me her school district is advising teachers to document better, as parents are starting to sue teachers directly for their failing kinder.
Cacti
Keep the Thor in Thursday.
different-church-lady
What do they have against New Year’s Day?
Cris (without an H)
All I can say is I’m glad I blocked my Uncle’s facebook updates.
boatboy_srq
@Chyron HR: @EconWatcher: Your two comments together explain everything that’s wrong with both the GOTea minority outreach efforts and with the assumption that TWoC is anything besides marketing.
ericblair
It’s still amazing how modern conservatism can’t do one fucking thing without the mouth-frothing hatred of Others boiling over. I see the outreach effort is continuing as anticipated.
KithKanan
Is it bad that I kind of want that same shirt in blue with “Happy Holidays!” on the back?
Lurking Buffoon
Damnit. I still want a lawn sign that says, “Keep your Christ, give back our Yule Log!”
Another Holocene Human
So, do “severely conservative” Jews run around wishing everyone a Merry Christmas?
What about severely conservative Jehovah’s Witnesses? (I realize many of them don’t vote.)
I grew up with some severely conservative Evangelicals who didn’t celebrate Christmas because it wasn’t a true Christian holiday. I guess Winter Feast Mass is back on the menu?
maya
I love the smell of burning mistletoe in the morning.
Cris (without an H)
I was thinking this morning (as I shoveled the snow) about why I hate the “Jesus is the Reason for the Season” thing. And while my initial reaction is against the arrogance of it, I decided what I really object to is that it’s just completely ahistorical. What, you guys really think the entire concept of winter holidays originated with Christianity?
The Red Pen
Oh, speaking of things conservatives say, we haven’t heard about the just-as-bad-as-war-crimes tyranny of the GM bailout. I expect we’ll be hearing about that a lot soon because GM had a great quarter.
hedgehog the occasional commenter
@ranchandsyrup: snerk.
Jewish Steel
Were you also aware that liberals drive like this?
Another Holocene Human
@Chyron HR: I’m going to have fun informing the Merry Christmas brigades who then awkwardly try to offer a Happy Hanukkah that Hanukkah came early this year and it’s over [in two days–wait for it]!!
Amir Khalid
@Cacti:
And the Wotan in Wednesday!
Belafon
@maya: Be careful with that stuff. Norse gods have been known to die because of it.
Another Holocene Human
@Belafon:
My Evangelical friends in the 1980s did indeed take that notion to 11. Instead of Christmas, they had “toy day”. Since the husband had a decent job, there were a lot of bright plastic toys indeed.
Having a German Catholic mother who took that whole Advent thing SUPERSERIAL my mind was indeed boggled.
LanceThruster
During last year’s War on Xmas, someone posted a pic of a FOX webpage offering “Holiday Ornaments.”
Just sayin’.
Another Holocene Human
@The Red Pen:
Or not Jews at all, if you’ll recall last month’s contretemps.
It’s all of a piece with this Israeli-American Rabbinical squabble over conversions that’s been playing out for the last several years.
If they keep it up, it’ll be Chabad all the way down, I don’t wonder.
Case study in why you should never combine religious authority with secular power.
David Hunt
@burnspbesq:
You’re slightly off there. They do actually care about Christ, i.e. that one specific individual. They love him, but they categorically reject everything he taught about helping the poor and weak, loving your enemy, etc.
Cacti
@Cris (without an H):
Same here. Unlike the Easter rituals that were observed by the ancient christian churches from their foundation, Christmas didn’t appear until around the 4th century. Solstice festivals had already been around for thousands of years, and it made good marketing sense for the European church to give an already popular holiday a christian spin.
Most of the trappings of Christmas are still thoroughly pagan and have zero to do with Jesus of Nazareth: holly, mistletoe, evergreen trees and wreaths, etc.
ranchandsyrup
@hedgehog the occasional commenter: There is a full time festivus pole here. The management just leaves it up all year.
Michael G
I’d ask O’Reilly where he was during the war on Thanksgiving, when retail employees were having their holiday ruined.
Oh right, he was counting the money from his sponsors and staying timidly silent.
Another Holocene Human
@srv: This whole meme that teachers are responsible for kids’ grades just needs to fucking die already. I’m not saying there are no quality differences in teachers. I was stuck with an English teacher trying to teach statistics one year and it was brutal. But being in a classroom is an opportunity. And frankly all kinds of things going on with the kid and their homelife can prevent them from taking it.
Villago Delenda Est
@Zam: If Francis keeps up this “Marxism” kick he’s on, Catholics may soon find themselves declared “non-Christian” again.
That applies already to those who do not venerate Mammon above all other invisible sky buddies already.
Another Holocene Human
@Cacti: Wake me up when it’s Freya Day.
fuckwit
@hedgehog the occasional commenter: we do that all year long here. it’s the internet.
Another Holocene Human
@Cris (without an H): The worst thing is that this is an intra-Christian battle, but we’re caught in the crossfire.
Chris
I will never fucking understand people the “Merry Christmas”/”Happy Holidays” war.
Maybe you celebrate Christmas and maybe you don’t, but do you or do you not hope that your 25th of December goes merrily? Maybe you think Jesus is the reason for the season and maybe you don’t, but do you or do you not hope that your week off from work is a happy one? THEN TAKE THE GOOD WISHES FOR WHAT THEY ARE AND MOVE ON, YOU UNAPPRECIATIVE FUCK.
mikej
What does the fox say?
The Red Pen
@Another Holocene Human:
I like Gold Day (金曜日) better.
Cacti
@Chris:
If a priest doesn’t come out to personally bless my retail experience in the name of the blessed babe of Bethlehem, the store is insulting my religious beliefs.
IowaOldLady
Do people not on FOX get worked up about this? Do you know anyone personally who cares?
I live in a very Christian part of the country and I’ve never heard anyone say a thing.
Roger Moore
@mikej:
“It’s all Obama’s fault.” Unless Nancy Pelosi, Harry Reid, or Hillary Clinton is the object of today’s
2 minutes24 hours of hate.Cacti
@Another Holocene Human:
Saturn’s Day night is alright for fighting.
Matt McIrvin
@Chris: It is about stoking feelings of persecution among political conservatives.
The right-wing newspaper comic “Prickly City” just ran a strip showing a sky full of military drones with a character saying “It’s beginning to look a lot like Christmas…” I guess Obama is out to kill Christmas with drone strikes or something. I had to think about it for a while even to extract that that was probably the intended message.
shelly
Nothing expresses the joyous Yuletide spirit than snarling at people.
(oops, I said ‘yuletide’ rather than ‘Christmas’)
jayjaybear
My annual Facebook status is “Axial tilt is the reason for the season”.
WereBear
Wingnuts are a grievance manufacturing center which can never be off-shored!
boatboy_srq
@Belafon: @Cacti: What irks me most is this: if TWoC is such a big deal to the Reichwing, why aren’t they fighting for all twelve days of it? This is how you can tell it isn’t real – the only thing they’re pouting over is not being able to shove their manly, muscular, gun-toting Jeebus in everyone’s face: suggest for a moment that actually celebrating the Holy Days as was done in the Days of Yore and you’re met with the strangest looks.
@burnspbesq: When your religious text consists of nothing more than Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Deuteronomy, Numbers and the Revelations (of John), there’s not a lot of Christ to be had.
Certified Mutant Enemy
@Cacti:
Keep Saturn in Saturnalia.
scav
@Matt McIrvin: Sky full of drones? That’s Amazon delivering overnight, so utterly legit so long as brand-name. Unless it’s over Bethlehem (or a liquor store where brown people walk out the door) when it’s repub approved baby-bunker-busters. Not even all drones are created equal.
Belafon
@Matt McIrvin: Or maybe Santa is converting to using drones instead of a sleigh (I first spelled that as slay).
The Red Pen
@Chris:
It’s about white people losing privilege.
Being able to say “Merry Christmas” without giving a shit who you’re addressing is part of being the privileged dominant culture.
It goes along with being about to sit at the lunch counter and know that whoever takes the seat next to you will also be white. It goes along with the scenario that when you make a remark about “fags,” your ever-single cousin just mumbles something and leaves the room. I goes along with being able to smack a coworker on her ass knowing that all she’ll do is wag her finger and say (in a jocular tone), “Now don’t get fresh with me, mister.”
Now, thanks to fucking hippies, we have to sit next to people who are not only a different color, but might be Muslim, or don’t speak English. That cousin is now married to her “roommate” and she tells you to shut your homophobic yap (and you just noticed the glares you’ve always gotten from the rest of the family) and God help you if you smack that coworker on the ass!
“Merry Christmas” is all they have left! It’s their hill to die on.
Citizen_X
@Cacti: KEEP YULETIDE PAGAN!
burnspbesq
OT: Larison and Frum, two of the three remaining conservatives worth paying attention to, are having a food fight. Over Ukraine.
http://www.theamericanconservative.com/larison/the-future-of-the-european-continent-is-not-at-stake-in-kiev/
Librarian
I just realized the reference- Edwin Starr, “War”!!!!!
The Red Pen
@boatboy_srq:
You forgot the Epistles of Paul. No authoritarian interpretation of Paul can be denied, even if Jesus Himself contradicts the interpretation.
boatboy_srq
@Matt McIrvin: Military imagery: it’s all they have left.
Villago Delenda Est
@Matt McIrvin:
We need to give these sorry motherfuckers ACTUAL persecution, in the form of public beatings about the head and shoulders with clue by fours with sharp pointy teeth.
schrodinger's cat
When conservative god botherers of any stripe say that they don’t have religious freedom, what they mean is they don’t have the freedom to impose their beliefs on everyone else. True story, hubcat’s religious fundie uncle who lives in India says he can’t practice his religion, which is laughable. Since he is a Brahmin in a country that is 80% plus Hindu.
boatboy_srq
@Cacti: Every day is like the Sun’s Day.
scav
“Happy Holidays is what Liberals Have!”
/back
“More Consumption and Mega Complaining is Modern Conservatism!”
Villago Delenda Est
@The Red Pen:
Let us speed the day that these vile maggots die on that hill, for the good of the species, the planet, and the universe itself.
MikeJ
@Roger Moore:
The fox, not Fox “News”. I was looking for a more pop culture answer:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jofNR_WkoCE
Hungry Joe
The Hanukkah thing (about there having been enough oil to burn the lamp for only one night, but it lasted eight nights) is also fantasy: Some rabbis made it up a few hundred years later to make the holiday — which is really a non-theistic celebration of a political/military event — more interesting for kids. I grew up in Reform Judaism, and the story was told with kind of a wink; it was clear that there was no obligation to believe it. (Of course, in a lot of Judaism there’s no obligation to believe anything … )
Matt McIrvin
@The Red Pen: So, of a piece with “Why should I have to press 1 for English???”
(By the way, has anyone here who is in the US ever actually had to press 1 for English? I suppose I do encounter language-selection screens in visual user interfaces, but that sounds like an audio message from a phone tree, and those usually default to English with a message telling you to press something for Spanish or other languages. Anyway, it seems remarkably mean to be opposed to UIs having any support for other languages at all.)
schrodinger's cat
The Puritans did not celebrate Christmas, did they? Speaking of Puritans, my recent blog post about Historic Deerfield, which predates the US.
Jack the Second
I’ve decided to start mixing it up with “Happy Christmas” and “Merry Holidays”.
boatboy_srq
@Jack the Second: “Happy Christmas” is the Brit version – which is equally Wrong, because it ain’t Ahmurrcan™ enough.
Villago Delenda Est
@schrodinger’s cat:
They BANNED it as “Papist”.
John Dillinger
In the WOC, I imagine Sarah Palin using an ACLU lawyer as a human shield, the way Darryl used a zombie as one in the Walking Dead the other night.
JustRuss
@Lurking Buffoon:
Who gets the gay apparel?
Villago Delenda Est
@JustRuss:
Ralph Reed and Lindsay Graham, for starters.
PaulW
BRING IT ON, YOU CHRISTIAN FRAUDS.
IO SATURNALIA FOREVER!!!
boatboy_srq
@JustRuss: So THAT’s what was in George Rekers’ “luggage”…
Roxy
Wasn’t Jesus born during the Summer/Fall? Wouldn’t the proper greeting be Merry Fall or some Greek wish. I mean if you read the myth of Hercules, Jesus and Hercules have a lot in common
rikyrah
Edward Domain: My Affordable Care Act Enrollment Experience
On May 4th of this year, I was in a cab on a Saturday afternoon heading to the St. Louis Cinco de Mayo parade with two friends. My cab driver was texting and as a result rolled through a red light, we collided head-on with a van and I wound up in the hospital requiring 5 total surgeries and spent five and a half months in two hospitals and a nursing home. I have a new hip, will be in physical therapy for my shoulder for another year and without insurance I would have been doomed. My current bill for health insurance is $628.34/mo and only covers me.
This is insane. No one I know pays this much for health insurance, so when Healthcare.Gov was announced, I was cautiously optimistic- I had also gotten a letter from Blue Cross/Blue Shield of Illinois informing me my policy was being cancelled. After I chose my plan rated ‘gold’ here is my new bill for health insurance under Obamacare: I am saving $265.85/mo under Obamacare, for a total savings of $3,190.20/year This plan is far better than what I had before. My current plan has a deductible of $3,000 and has a $20 co-pay. Under Obamacare, my new plan has a $750 deductible and $30 co-pay for doctor’s visits.
For me, I’ll happily pay an extra $10 when I visit the doctor in return for a smaller copay for the important stuff. If you look, the most I’ll ever pay in one year is $6000- after that I am 100% covered for everything. If you look at my plan details, you’ll see that if I am in-network, after the deductible is covered ($750) then almost everything gets covered 100%. The biggest point for me is that my new plan under Obamacare is with Blue Cross/Blue Shield, the same company that my old plan was under. That means they were happily over-charging me for insurance and now, thanks to Obamacare, I have a better plan than I had before and I am paying less for it. Also of note- I did not qualify for subsidies- I am paying the full rate.
http://techli.com/2013/11/my-obamacare-affordable-care-act-enrollment-experience/
flukebucket
♪ It’s the most wonderful time of the year ♪
Villago Delenda Est
@Roxy:
There is a hell of a lot of borrowing from other religious traditions going on with the big three monotheist outfits.
Mohammed at least had the ethical scruples to give proper hat tips to Judaism and Christianity.
Certified Mutant Enemy
@rikyrah:
I’m sure well hear a lot of these kind of stories on Fox “News”…
shelly
“Wasn’t Jesus born during the Summer/Fall?”
***********
I’d always heard it was during Spring. Lambing season. Why the hell else would the shepherds be staying out all night with their flocks?
Mnemosyne
I know they wrote this to mock “political correctness” of the 1990s, but it works so very well being applied to conservatives today:
Mike and the ‘Bots sing “Merry Christmas (If That’s OK)”
Villago Delenda Est
@Mnemosyne:
“Political Correctness” started as a leftist snark meme, the “conservatives” actually take the concept seriously.
Mnemosyne
Also, too, maybe I’m weird, but I always assumed “Happy Holidays” was shorthand for “Merry Christmas and Happy New Year.” You know, roll the two together. Or is New Year’s not a “real” holiday in RTC land?
jenn
@IowaOldLady: Who knows how prevalent it is, but a few years back, I did have one old man literally yell “It’s Merry Christmas” at me, in response to my smiling “Happy Holidays!” I was a tad boggled by it. So, I’d guess that overt displays may be pretty rare, but maybe there are more folks either grumbling internally or bitching within-group.
Belafon
@shelly: From what I heard the census was in September. The shepherds and Wise men showed up months later.
The Red Pen
@Roxy:
If Jesus was the Jewish Messiah, He would have had to have been born either at Passover or Rosh Hashanah.
Matt McIrvin
@Villago Delenda Est: Mike Nelson (who wrote most of MST3K’s songs, even during the Joel era) actually is a political conservative of some sort.
schrodinger's cat
@jenn: It happened to me, a few years ago, it was an old woman in Santa hat, in the HR department of a huge state University. I was taken aback. I don’t mind if people wish me Merry Christmas or Happy Holidays or neither.
The Other Chuck
Happy Sol Invictus, everyone!
Roger Moore
@JustRuss:
Anyone who cares about looking fabulous.
The Red Pen
I just remembered an anecdote. It took place in early January in an elevator ride.
Idiot Coworker (IC): So, Ivan, did you have a good Christmas?
Ivan: My family doesn’t celebrate Christmas.
IC: Oh, are you Jewish?
Ivan: No, Russian Orthodox.
IC: Is that Jewish?
(Orthodox Christians celebrate Epiphany, not Christmas.)
Roger Moore
@Mnemosyne:
The Conservatives are worried that it might actually mean “happy whatever holiday you happen to celebrate this time of years, whether it’s Christmas, New Year, Chanukah, Solstice, etc.” Since that includes holidays they don’t celebrate and don’t believe in, it’s the Worst. Thing. Ever.
kc
They must really hate Bing Crosby.
boatboy_srq
@Mnemosyne: AFAIK, there are three High Holy Days in the RTC calendar: 25 December (Jeebus’ birfday), Easter (Jeebus’ rebirfday), and 4 July (when Jeebus signed the Declaration of Independence).
Bobby Thomson
@Cacti:
Both Easter and Christmas go back to Babylonians, with a Euro-Pagan overlay.
Matt McIrvin
@Hungry Joe: I have definitely heard some Jews grumbling now and then about the elevation of Hanukkah to major-holiday status as a sort of assimilationist stand-in for Christmas.
Mnemosyne
@Another Holocene Human:
I once worked with a Jehovah’s Witness who genuinely had no clue why he couldn’t schedule a meeting at 4:00 pm on Christmas Eve. Just no concept at all.
He also wanted to get permission to work on holidays (Christmas Day, New Year’s, etc.) but it was a high-rise building and the lights and HVAC would have had to be turned on especially for him, so eventually he talked it over with his bishop (or whomever), who agreed that the inconvenience and cost to everyone else was too much to justify it even for religious reasons. Nowadays, he could probably just telecommute those days and everyone would be happy.
Bobby Thomson
@Roxy: The mating of a Sun god during the vernal equinox (Ostara) produced offspring 9 months later on Yule. The Roman Catholic church aggressively coopted Pagan culture in order to gain market share.
schrodinger's cat
@Bobby Thomson: Almost every culture/religion has a spring festival and winter festival. More to do with the seasons than religion I think. The religious stuff got tacked on later, me thinks.
Pincher
They used Comic sans on a T-shirt?
(shakes head)
lethargytartare
@David Hunt:
which exactly mirrors their “patriotism” which boils down to worshiping the geographical location indicated by the letters USA while categorically rejecting most of the socio-political principals that actually define its nationhood.
Mnemosyne
@ranchandsyrup:
I hate to be the one to break it to you, but that’s a stripper pole.
handsmile
@The Red Pen:
Such a trenchant analysis. A real pleasure to read. Thanks, and happy holidays!
Redshift
@schrodinger’s cat: Well, since the winter festival is a celebration of making it through to when the days start getting longer, (unlike spring and fall, which are specifically related to agriculture), I doubt it would be possible to separate it from religion. It predates mass organized religion, certainly, but there’s considerable evidence now that religion (in the form of organized construction of astronomical monuments) predates even agriculture.
Bobby Thomson
@rikyrah: Yeah, but what did the cab driver say? /Friedman
Mnemosyne
@Matt McIrvin:
That one was written by Frank Conniff (aka TV’s Frank), who also has a pretty funny Twitter feed.
Jay S
@Lurking Buffoon: Antenna TV will bring you your yule log on Christmas morning: http://vimeo.com/79526358
Mnemosyne
@schrodinger’s cat:
Really? When I was temping in the HR department for UCLA, I wasn’t even allowed to put evergreen trees on the flyer for the holiday potluck because it was too sectarian. But, then, the woman I was temping for was in charge of affirmative action enforcement, so maybe she was extra-sensitive.
Matt McIrvin
@Mnemosyne: Ah. Conniff definitely is not a conservative.
Roger Moore
@Bobby Thomson:
There’s good reason to think that Easter is set at the correct time of year, since the Last Supper was explicitly described as a Seder. It’s certainly true that a lot of the trappings of Easter were taken from pagan traditions- Easter egg hunts being a great example- but the religious celebration was not set when it was for arbitrary reasons of countering pagan celebrations the way Christmas clearly was.
A Streeter
In the unlikely event that someone objected to my wishing them happy holidays, I’d probably then wish them “sad and dreary holidays, whatever.”
Mike E
Bible secrets revealed tomorrow at 10 on the History Channel: Jesus’ sibs get disappeared from all texts, Soviet style. I guess they had it coming.
Villago Delenda Est
@Roger Moore:
The analogy between “resurrection” and what happens after the Vernal Equinox in the Northern hemisphere is just too strong for this not to be a convenient adaptation of pagan rituals based on observed changes all around people. Axial tilt is the reason for the seasons, and the season, if you will.
scav
@Jay S: That’s a whimpy small Yule log. I want one of the big ones, or maybe the one we feed hay to and then hit to make defecate presents. Catalonia or Germania!
Bobby Thomson
@Roger Moore: Nope. Before it was called Easter, it was observed three days after Passover.
Omnes Omnibus
@Bobby Thomson:
They were just following Roman practices. Conquer some group who worship a sun god named Herbert, label Herbert a version of Apollo (Apollo-Herbert), stop worrying about religion, and start collecting taxes.
Matt McIrvin
@Roger Moore: Wasn’t the date of Good Friday/Easter explicitly pegged to Passover at first, until the Church decided it needed a computation independent of Jewish religious practice? (I think the calculations involved are still similar in spirit, though Easter and Passover now float relative to one another because of the use of different mathematical idealizations and assumptions.)
gelfling545
@Another Holocene Human: I knew a family like this. They were relatives of close friends. They didn’t celebrate but they had no problem with accepting gifts & just happening to visit relatives who were celebrating on Christmas day.
Splitting Image
@JustRuss:
More importantly, what about the archaic barrel?
Another Holocene Human
@Villago Delenda Est: To be more accurate they also banned it because Christmas had a smashing pumpkins reputation at the time: young men got super drunk and then went around town wrecking things.
I understand the drinking too much bit is still a cherished tradition in some quarters.
The Victorian Xmas is Victorian precisely because the Victorians made most of it up. (To be fair, that’s the English-speaking world–Germans and Norwegians and Swedes and other “ethnic” whites had their own traditions which got merged into the new manufactured demand consumer middle class performance act.
Mnemosyne
@The Red Pen:
It could have been around Passover, what with the shepherds watching their flocks by night, since that’s what you do in spring lambing season, not in the dead of winter.
Mnemosyne
Speaking of cultural differences between religious holidays, I bring you David Sedaris trying to explain the Rabbit of Easter to his disbelieving French instructor, who carefully explains to the silly American that everyone in France knows that Easter presents are brought by a bell that flies in from Rome.
Hungry Joe
@The Red Pen: When I was in high school a girl asked me how we celebrated Christmas. I said, “Marie, we’re Jewish.” She said, “I know, but you’re still CHRISTIAN.”
@Matt McIrvin: Hanukkah was a pretty minor holiday till Christmas got juiced up about 100 years ago. Then Hanukkah had to step up its game because of all the whining about “How come THEY get presents and WE don’t?” Worked for me.
gelfling545
I have never cared one way or the other. I’d be fine if store clerks, who certainly and quite reasonably have no interest in the happiness of whatever holidays I might observe, said hello or good bye or thank you for shopping at Joe’s or whatever. I will now make a point of saying happy holidays to all & sundry just because of this nonsense.
scav
@Another Holocene Human: Adults / young men Wassailing around town, demanding alcohol and food from householders, So bring us some figgy pudding, right here and we won’t go until we get some!
Another Holocene Human
@The Red Pen: ::head-desk::
I grew up in New England. There are a lot of Greeks there. (I had an outspoken Greek Orthodox classmate in kindergarten who got taken for Jewish by stupid people, so, huh, I guess that is a thing.) They came for the factory jobs in the early 1900s. It was just a thing that Catholic Christmas ended and Greek Orthodox Christmas started. (They even bought trees and shit–our German cultural hegemony plan will succeed with the insidious Kinderweihnachtsfestkultur!!!) I was really floored when I found out most people don’t know about Orthodox Christmas!
Lurking Buffoon
@Jay S: It’s more a reference to Yule and other Solstice holidays getting hijacked by Christmas. From here until February or so I see a lot of those annoying “Keep Christ in Christmas” lawn signs, so having a lawn sign that’s essentially a giant middle finger to those historically illiterate morans would be ideal.
@jenn: You should have said, “And a joyous Yule/Saturnalia to you too!”
Another Holocene Human
@Matt McIrvin: I always figured Hanukkah got big because Zionism. It’s a nationalistic holiday after all. I remember getting told on the schoolyard in detail about the Maccabees kicking so much gentile ass.
Needless to say, I didn’t grow up in a very Orthodox area (liberal Orthodox, Modern Orthodox, ultra-Orthodox, Chassidic or Hareidi–take your motherfucking pick). Good grief, I didn’t even learn about Sukkot until college. (Thanks to fundie friends I had heard of Feast of Booths. At some point it was like oh that was–oh–ohhhh.) Btw, there’s a nice Sukkot scene in Mamele (classic Yiddish movie with Polish film star Molly Picon).
Mike E
@Another Holocene Human: Read The Man Who Invented Christmas. It places the blame for unleashing this garish holiday at the feet of Charles Dickens, and A Christmas Carol.
Mnemosyne
@scav:
I’m making figgy pudding for our holiday potluck at work, though I am now reconsidering how much rum to put in it. It is an office party, after all.
Another Holocene Human
@Bobby Thomson: Isn’t that the sun god’s MOM, Ishtar/Isis/whatever? Although the whole cycle goes from baby to consort to sacrifice so yeah, you could make the consort the child.
Jewish Steel
@Omnes Omnibus: There is only one True Apollo-Herbert. All else is apostasy.
Another Holocene Human
@Roger Moore: Sorry, but you are just incorrect on that. The bishops moved the Passion celebration to facilitate travel to the Holy Land. And it’s never been set up to coincide with Passover given that Passover is on a LUNAR calendar!
Another Holocene Human
@Omnes Omnibus: They certainly did this in Mexico.
Another Holocene Human
@gelfling545: I wouldn’t describe this crew as no-problem. Like the proverbial evangelizing vegetarians, they made a point of telling everyone they knew that they didn’t celebrate Christmas and why.
Villago Delenda Est
@Jewish Steel:
Remember that episode of Star Trek where the “space hippies” were yelling “Herbert! Herbert!” at Kirk?
scav
@Mike E: It was a long re-invention, accelerated under the victorians. See also The Battle For Christmas by Stephan Nissenbaum. Dickens is interesting as he’s also pulling in the older tradition of telling ghost stories at these holidays — as are most of his other christmas stories.
ruemara
@WereBear: Now that deserves to be on a tshirt
Mnemosyne
@Another Holocene Human:
Easter is also calculated on a lunar calendar — that’s why it moves around every year. Christmas is a fixed date, but Easter shifts.
ETA: Easter and Passover don’t always coincide because Passover is calculated using the Jewish calendar and Easter is calculated using the Gregorian calendar.
Ash Can
@A Streeter: Agree. If I ever saw someone wearing this shirt, I’d just say “OK, then don’t have happy holidays. Be miserable.”
FFS, the whole concept of “Happy Holidays” is precisely why I love this time of year. It’s the darkest, grayest, dreariest time of year in this hemisphere, so what do observers of Christmas (and non-observers who just want to have a little fun) do? They put up lights. Jewish people celebrate what’s known as the Festival of Lights around this time of year. They have their own kind of lights. People who celebrate Kwanzaa light their own candles too. Diwali falls around this time of year too. You guessed it — more lights. And then everybody celebrates the new year. Still more lights, in the form of fireworks and bonfires, and a world-wide party. What in all of this bright festivity is not to love?
The holiday season in this hemisphere is one long, drawn-out thumbnose at the shitty dark, gray weather, and in both hemispheres offers various and sundry opportunities for everyone, no matter what their cultures or beliefs, to get together with friends and family and have a good time. When I tell both strangers and people I know to “enjoy the holidays.” I mean it, and if anyone’s offended by that there’s nothing in the entire fucking world I can do — even by saying “Merry Christmas” — to help them with that.
scav
@Mnemosyne: Or the Orthodox calendar, for some (not all) Orthodox churches, can’t forget them either. All the Variance, Baby in the Cave too!
Cris (without an H)
I keep trying to forget it, but the world won’t let me.
Mike E
@scav: I’ll look for it, thanks. The Les Standiford book does a nice job of putting Dickens’ sales strategy in historical perspective (esp. his serials) and how this relentless commercial force moved the U.S. Puritanical attitudes away from disdain of Xmas to a total embrace of it (and Victorian sensibilities).
Mnemosyne
@scav:
IIRC, the Orthodox churches stuck with the Julian calendar rather than switching to the Gregorian, so that’s why there’s a discrepancy there.
ruemara
@Pincher: This is really the takeaway. These people have no taste and no substance.
Shana
@KithKanan: Haven’t read through all the comments yet, but you can probably go over to Zazzle and make your own.
Matt McIrvin
@Mnemosyne: And also because the “lunar” component of the (RCC and majority-Protestant) calculation doesn’t use the real Moon, it uses a mathematically idealized version that can be a little off from the real full Moon.
The rule is roughly that Easter is the first Sunday after the first full Moon after the spring equinox… but March 21st is taken to be the nominal equinox (which is not always astronomically correct), and the Moon is this regularized Moon based on lookup tables.
And, yeah, the difference between the Julian and Gregorian March 21st is what produces the difference in the Eastern Orthodox date; they never went off the Julian calendar for scheduling feasts.
I think the Jewish date for the beginning of Passover, Nisan 14 at sundown, translates to a similar calculation, except that they’re not using the Gregorian calendar or the same idealized Moon, so it can actually come after Easter sometimes. According to Wikipedia, before the Council of Nicaea some early Christians would just find out when Passover began and celebrate Easter on the Sunday after that.
Roger Moore
@Villago Delenda Est:
I’m not sure I buy that. Vernal Equinox celebrations tend to be fertility festivals celebrating the burgeoning of nature. That’s where the Easter Bunny and Easter Egg hunts come from. That’s basically where the lamb part of Passover comes from, too; it’s celebrating the Spring lambing. The actual resurrection celebrations are usually around the Winter Solstice, where people celebrate the rebirth of the sun.
gogol's wife
@IowaOldLady:
I want the shirt too! The red is very nice — it can stand for “holidays” or “Marxist-Leninist coup.”
Ben Cisco
@Villago Delenda Est: “We reach!”
Lurking Buffoon
@Ash Can: I’m pretty sure that’s pretty much the anthropological (or would historical be more appropriate?) reason for Winter holidays. You celebrate on the shortest day of the year when the weather is deathly cold and miserable and game is scarce because you’re still alive. Seasonally it’s hit rock bottom, so there’s nowhere to go but up. Coincidentally, it’s also why I like this time of year too. Happy holidays!
Roger Moore
@Matt McIrvin:
I think that’s essentially correct. And note that the Catholic and Orthodox churches actually calculate the dates slightly differently, so their Easter celebrations aren’t necessarily at the same time. The calculations now explicitly include the Vernal Equinox, but that’s because the calculations for Passover wind up including the timing of the Equinox, too. The larger point is that there’s good scriptural evidence for exactly when Jesus was crucified, and Easter is and always has been scheduled to place it at the same time of year as when the Gospels say it happened. That’s substantially different from Christmas, which is celebrated at the wrong time of year, even relative to the vague information in the Bible.
JustRuss
I never realized Perry Como was a culture warrior.
geg6
@gelfling545:
Heh. That’s exactly what I do and have done ever since this nonsense first hit my radar many years ago.
Roger Moore
@Another Holocene Human:
Easter is also set based on a lunar calendar, or at least calculations involving the phases of the moon. That’s why it moves around by as much as a month from year to year rather than always being on the same week of the solar calendar the way other holidays scheduled to happen on the same day of the week do. In fact, those calculations are set up to place it on the first Sunday after Passover (or maybe it’s the first Sunday at least two days after Passover, I can never remember which) precisely because that’s when the Gospels say it’s supposed to happen. There’s a lot of confusion because different churches calculate when Passover is supposed to be differently- and not necessarily the same way the Jews do, either- but the intent has always been to place it relative to Passover.
g
The right wing. Organizing a fearless campaign to counteract a pleasant greeting phrase.
Roger Moore
@g:
More specifically, they’re organizing to counteract a mild, inoffensive greeting phrase because they want one that’s explicitly offensive to people who don’t agree with them. How better to celebrate the birthday of the Prince of Peace than by punching a hippie?
Cacti
@Bobby Thomson:
Yes, plenty of pagan trappings around Easter also. Just saying that the very earliest christians would commemorate the crucifixion and resurrection. Celebrating the birth of Jesus didn’t come until centuries later and the New Testament has no admonition to hold such an observance.
JK
@Pincher: It took until comment 126 for someone to point this out. It was my first thought. I am ashamed of you Balloon-juice community.
LanceThruster
@Jack the Second:
I like “Murky Myth-mas!”
Mullah DougJ
@Librarian:
Yes!
slippy
@Dedc79:
Yea, I’m done with the whole holiday. It does nothing for me. I fucking hate Christmas music. I hate enforced cheer. I detest the whole thing.
It’s just so fake.