Happy Holidays
Dec. 5th, 2005 11:59 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
eggwardsLast night I was out with my parents. They are still liking the new car. In a way of showing off, knowing my Mom's love of the season, I put on the Holiday music channel. Yes, that's what I said, the Holiday channel.
My mother brought up the whole "Holiday" issue that has seemed to explode this year. Many evangelicals and some other Christians along with mouthpiece Bill O'Reiley have been making a big stink about retailers, broadcasters and others use of the word "Holiday" instead of Christmas. One of the most virulent voices has been the Rev. Donald Wildmon who has sent out email after email urging boycotts of stores that "refuse" to wish people a Merry Christmas.
Yep, I'm on the American Family Association's mailing list. I got on it when I emailed the form letter to Walgreens for supporting the Gay Games. Of course I made plenty of changes to the form to actually praise the drugstore for their support - support as the AFA reports, is actually based on trying to drive up HIV infections to gain customers. Lovely conspiracy theory there, but something tells me that the average AFA reader really doesn't care about the HIV infection rate among gays and lesbians.
Still, I get these messages telling me that all of these retailers and broadcasters are tying to destroy Christianity in America and get rid of Christmas. this shows a big lack of thinking on their part. The only reason that retailers, during their busiest time of the year, would want to remove Christmas from their store is to try to be more inclusive, to try to not alienate other customers, and to try to drive larger sales by getting people of many faiths involved in the gift-giving season.
In this nation, should you work to include everyone, suddenly the group who was once singled out by their year-ending celebration feels slighted. Why? Because suddenly their feeling of specialness is gone. the rubber stamping of their values has been pushed aside, or so they believe.
Personally I see plenty of signs of the season, lights and special sales and hear the songs of Christmas and other holidays. It hasn't gone away, and those who want to celebrate the birth of Jesus christ can do it. Religious freedom isn't dead, it's just that stores and broadcast outlets and cities have realized that there are other people out there in the world. Millions of other people who don't believe the same thing and don't wish to have The Little Drummer Boy drummed into their head. People and organizations have done their best to try to promote tolerance.
Unfortunately we still have this bunch of crybabies who, instead of feeling empowered to personally be able to celebrate their beliefs is going out to try to tell the rest of us that we're wrong, and only the loudest crybabies can work to get their Christmas back. They challenge these stores and tell them that they must tell them merry christmas of they will shop elsewhere.
The funny thing is that Target and Wal*Mart are two of the stores that have "removed" Christmas from their stores and advertising. Given that these two stores have driven out many other retailers from towns everywhere, just where are these people supposed to buy their presents? Amazon.com?
Some retailers have been giving in. Some, like Walgreens have said that they will comply with the demands of the boycotters and will include the word Christmas in next year's advertising. Maybe it's the truth, maybe it's just stalling, or maybe they will actually use "Christmas" in conjunction with several other seasonal celebrations, like Chanukah, Solstice and Yule.
I personally remember my bitch of a cousin being upset with the US Postal Service when they issued Chanukah and Ramadan stamps along with the traditional Christmas stamp a couple of years ago. Heaven help us for another round of damned inclusiveness. Luckily Ramadan has moved on so she can just be outraged by the Jews this season.
Don't get me wrong. I don't mind Christmas. It's often a nice, fun festive time of the year, and I look forward to the music. Still, you won't offend me by calling it a Christmas Tree, nor would you offend me by saying "Merry Christmas". Sure, my actual faith in the religion has waned, but I'm not scared of offended by the holiday. in fact, it's mighty easy to celebrate without the ties to the miracle birth.
That brings me to my father. As a pert of the argument about the loss of christmas (my parent's watch Fox News), he mentioned that Kwanzaa is made up and doesn't need to be celebrated. "Ok", I told him, "Christmas Day is just as made up as Kwanzaa." As he started to bark at my assertion I stated, "Whether or not Jesus (the son of God version) walked on the Earth, the fact is, December 25th wasn't his birthday, it was a day chosen to take advantage of the Pagan rituals and feasts that were already there in the people the Christians wanted to convert." Dad didn't have much of a response.
when we kept talking about the role of Christmas in America, I said to them, "One of the reasons that the season has gotten away from its religious roots is that people have let it. Over the last 75 years, more has been done to make Christmas time about family, crass commercialism, and the innocuous images of innocence (and of course Santa Claus) than it has been about the son of God. As you know, it's the Christians who helped make it this way." The idea of the perfect present took over from the reason why the celebration started for many people.
I mean, there was a Garfield Christmas Special, for goodness sake. The Charlie Brown special is the only one that actually mentions Jesus and rejects commercialism. Garfield? pass the Lasagna.
So I asked the question to them, and I'll ask it again, "Why does a majority have to go on whining about their plight? Why use tactics of, and try to make yourselves out as a minority to get their way?" I guess I'll never know.
Personally I'm tired of the debate. call the season what you will, and enjoy the beginning of winter with your family, or friends, or loved ones, whomever they might be. You can wish me whatever you want, I won't be offended, and I wish that a few others would stop being offended as well.
Just don't push. It's the most wonderful time of the year, you know.
My mother brought up the whole "Holiday" issue that has seemed to explode this year. Many evangelicals and some other Christians along with mouthpiece Bill O'Reiley have been making a big stink about retailers, broadcasters and others use of the word "Holiday" instead of Christmas. One of the most virulent voices has been the Rev. Donald Wildmon who has sent out email after email urging boycotts of stores that "refuse" to wish people a Merry Christmas.
Yep, I'm on the American Family Association's mailing list. I got on it when I emailed the form letter to Walgreens for supporting the Gay Games. Of course I made plenty of changes to the form to actually praise the drugstore for their support - support as the AFA reports, is actually based on trying to drive up HIV infections to gain customers. Lovely conspiracy theory there, but something tells me that the average AFA reader really doesn't care about the HIV infection rate among gays and lesbians.
Still, I get these messages telling me that all of these retailers and broadcasters are tying to destroy Christianity in America and get rid of Christmas. this shows a big lack of thinking on their part. The only reason that retailers, during their busiest time of the year, would want to remove Christmas from their store is to try to be more inclusive, to try to not alienate other customers, and to try to drive larger sales by getting people of many faiths involved in the gift-giving season.
In this nation, should you work to include everyone, suddenly the group who was once singled out by their year-ending celebration feels slighted. Why? Because suddenly their feeling of specialness is gone. the rubber stamping of their values has been pushed aside, or so they believe.
Personally I see plenty of signs of the season, lights and special sales and hear the songs of Christmas and other holidays. It hasn't gone away, and those who want to celebrate the birth of Jesus christ can do it. Religious freedom isn't dead, it's just that stores and broadcast outlets and cities have realized that there are other people out there in the world. Millions of other people who don't believe the same thing and don't wish to have The Little Drummer Boy drummed into their head. People and organizations have done their best to try to promote tolerance.
Unfortunately we still have this bunch of crybabies who, instead of feeling empowered to personally be able to celebrate their beliefs is going out to try to tell the rest of us that we're wrong, and only the loudest crybabies can work to get their Christmas back. They challenge these stores and tell them that they must tell them merry christmas of they will shop elsewhere.
The funny thing is that Target and Wal*Mart are two of the stores that have "removed" Christmas from their stores and advertising. Given that these two stores have driven out many other retailers from towns everywhere, just where are these people supposed to buy their presents? Amazon.com?
Some retailers have been giving in. Some, like Walgreens have said that they will comply with the demands of the boycotters and will include the word Christmas in next year's advertising. Maybe it's the truth, maybe it's just stalling, or maybe they will actually use "Christmas" in conjunction with several other seasonal celebrations, like Chanukah, Solstice and Yule.
I personally remember my bitch of a cousin being upset with the US Postal Service when they issued Chanukah and Ramadan stamps along with the traditional Christmas stamp a couple of years ago. Heaven help us for another round of damned inclusiveness. Luckily Ramadan has moved on so she can just be outraged by the Jews this season.
Don't get me wrong. I don't mind Christmas. It's often a nice, fun festive time of the year, and I look forward to the music. Still, you won't offend me by calling it a Christmas Tree, nor would you offend me by saying "Merry Christmas". Sure, my actual faith in the religion has waned, but I'm not scared of offended by the holiday. in fact, it's mighty easy to celebrate without the ties to the miracle birth.
That brings me to my father. As a pert of the argument about the loss of christmas (my parent's watch Fox News), he mentioned that Kwanzaa is made up and doesn't need to be celebrated. "Ok", I told him, "Christmas Day is just as made up as Kwanzaa." As he started to bark at my assertion I stated, "Whether or not Jesus (the son of God version) walked on the Earth, the fact is, December 25th wasn't his birthday, it was a day chosen to take advantage of the Pagan rituals and feasts that were already there in the people the Christians wanted to convert." Dad didn't have much of a response.
when we kept talking about the role of Christmas in America, I said to them, "One of the reasons that the season has gotten away from its religious roots is that people have let it. Over the last 75 years, more has been done to make Christmas time about family, crass commercialism, and the innocuous images of innocence (and of course Santa Claus) than it has been about the son of God. As you know, it's the Christians who helped make it this way." The idea of the perfect present took over from the reason why the celebration started for many people.
I mean, there was a Garfield Christmas Special, for goodness sake. The Charlie Brown special is the only one that actually mentions Jesus and rejects commercialism. Garfield? pass the Lasagna.
So I asked the question to them, and I'll ask it again, "Why does a majority have to go on whining about their plight? Why use tactics of, and try to make yourselves out as a minority to get their way?" I guess I'll never know.
Personally I'm tired of the debate. call the season what you will, and enjoy the beginning of winter with your family, or friends, or loved ones, whomever they might be. You can wish me whatever you want, I won't be offended, and I wish that a few others would stop being offended as well.
Just don't push. It's the most wonderful time of the year, you know.
