Oh joy, a War on Christmas thread. It's our longest and most propagandized war, with casualties in the tens.
Very few people are offended by the idea of Christmas itself, and if they are, so what? They're an insignificant minority who can do absolutely nothing to seriously affect the celebration of Christmas worldwide.
What people do get offended by is Christian exceptionalism and the idea that somehow Christians have a monopoly on winter holidays. They're offended by some Christians thinking that any acknowledgment of other holidays is an insult, when in fact it is they who are being insulting by insisting that only Christmas should be mentioned. I'm talking about the people who get upset by being wished Happy Holidays or Seasons Greetings instead of taking it in the spirit that it is given. They're every bit as uptight and wrong as those who are offended by Christmas itself, but unfortunately there's more of them around to be irritating.
What people get offended by is arrogant and ignorant comments like this:
I love wishing Muslims a Merry Christmas.
Most Muslims I know wouldn't care about being wished a Merry Christmas and would take it in the spirit it was given if it was offered genuinely and not like
BA did here. Many Muslims here in the US (and probably Canada and Europe) even celebrate Christmas as a secular holiday like many others around the world do regardless of their religion.
But the problem is that
he thinks it would be insulting, and so he deliberately goes around saying it with that intent. Or more likely he just jokes about saying it while not having the guts to actually go through with it and maybe have his ridiculous preconceptions challenged. If he does do it I wouldn't doubt that he's wished many people of Middle Eastern descent who are Christians a Merry Christmas in his attempt to be rude because he doesn't realize that Middle Eastern doesn't inherently mean Muslim.
Of course we're all familiar with it. Retail staff are told to say "Happy Holidays" or "Seasons Greetings" rather than "Merry Christmas" to customers or when answering the phone.
It's in businesses' best interest to be as inclusive to as many of their customers as possible in order to make more money off of them. That is literally all there is to businesses telling their employees to say Happy Holidays or Seasons Greetings. There's no corporate conspiracy or agenda against the celebration of Christmas. Businesses love Christmas. If they could convince people that Jesus had a miraculously conceived sibling born in June to create a second gift giving holiday, they would do it.
Every so often someone pushes to have a Christmas Tree on public display referred to as a Holiday Tree instead. Fortunately such a move is usually greeted with a hailstorm of criticism and derision until things go back to normal.
It's a bit silly, but it's such a rare occurrence that it's not even worth being concerned about, and when it does happen it in no way interferes with anyone's personal naming of the tree or how they choose to celebrate the holiday.
Your calling it "normal" is interesting though. If by normal you mean original, then I insist that you call it a Yule Tree from now on, since like many of our secular Christmas traditions that's the pagan holiday where it came from. Christmas is such an amalgam of ancient and pagan holidays that the very idea of anyone being upset by someone saying Happy Holidays is ridiculous in the extreme, especially since holidays (Holy Days) still acknowledges its religiosity.
Noted godless hippie communist Dwight Eisenhower started the trend of inclusive presidential holiday greetings cards:
The gripes against inclusive seasonal displays and yuletide capitalism found new expression in the sudden outrage over the president's generic holiday cards. Last year, many conservatives were furious that George W. Bush omitted the word Christmas from his wintertime mailings. The Washington Post quoted William Donohue, president of the Catholic League for Religious and Civil Rights, saying: "This clearly demonstrates that the Bush administration has suffered a loss of will and that they have capitulated to the worst elements in our culture." Added another conservative religious leader, "I threw out my White House card as soon as I got it."
But here, too, it's the foes of the ecumenical greeting who want to destroy a long-standing modus vivendi. Mary Evans Seeley's book Season's Greetings from the White House: The Collection of Presidential Christmas Cards, Messages, and Gifts shows that "Season's Greetings" was used on White House holiday correspondence by no less than Dwight D. Eisenhower in the 1950s. Likewise, Presidents Kennedy, Johnson, Carter, Reagan, and Clinton all took care, as well, not to alienate non-Christian recipients of holiday mail. Few people expressed a problem with this long-standing practice until now.
http://www.slate.com/id/2155509/
And who can forget that motion picture screed against all things Christmas that was 1942's 'Holiday Inn,' where Bing Crosby insults all fine Christian folk by defiantly singing
'Happy Holidays'?
Many big retail outlets tone down or outright don't decorate for Christmas, particularly this year it seems.
Which big retail outlets don't decorate for Christmas? Can you give me some examples? Because I did a lot of shopping at a lot of different stores and they all had Christmas/holiday decorations up. Like I said, businesses love Christmas. If anything, it seems as if the decorations go up earlier and earlier each year. I've seen Hallmark Christmas ornament stands out in July.
If I buy into your suggestion that major retailers aren't decorating as much this year for a moment, wouldn't the more likely explanation be related to the tenuous state of the economy and the personal finances of many consumers rather than any decrease in Christmas cheer?
Throughout its history Christmas has often been under attack by someone.
The only serious "attack" on the holiday came from... wait for it... Christians, in the form of the Puritan Parliament during the
English Interregnum who banned Christmas and Easter for their pagan origins.
The only other "attacks" (in the US at least) usually come from the ACLU and concern not having the government violate the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment by seeming to endorse a particular religion on public property. It in no way affects how private businesses or individuals choose to celebrate Christmas, and is rarely strictly enforced seeing as how Christmas is a national holiday and we have "In God We Trust" on our money.
Don't you wonder how Christmas is so
widely celebrated and even
gaining more celebrants each year despite allegedly being under constant attack? Doesn't that seem a bit contradictory?
And yet we're often told it's supposedly done in fairness to others who don't celebrate Christmas and we shouldn't offend them. Of course what's overlooked are those ones who are actually offended by such moves: those of us who celebrate and hold Christmas in our hearts.
So what you're saying is what you choose to get offended by matters more than what others choose to get offended by. Which is fine, but at least call it what it is and don't pretend it's only one side getting irrationally offended.
Again I have to wonder what is so repulsive about the very idea of inclusiveness. If you are truly honoring the memory and teachings of Christ, which is what the non-secular aspect of the holiday is supposed to be for, then what do you think he would have done? Maybe I'm not up on my Jesus, but I seem to recall him being a pretty inclusive guy who respected people of different beliefs and backgrounds. It's a shame so many of his modern followers didn't get that message and instead focus on petty things like not acknowledging the numerous other
winter festivals and holidays there are, many of which Christianity has usurped or borrowed from.
And never have I encountered anyone who struck me as bothered by being wished a Merry Christmas. Indeed they often reciprocate the greeting in kind.
Right, so it's a complete non-issue then by your own account. And yet here we are.
So just who is it that's really being offended by Christmas? If it isn't those who possibly might be offended then who is it that are so bothered by Christmas that they seem hellbent on erasing its recognition and perhaps even existence?
Hardly anyone, and no one of importance. The War on Christmas and the Culture War are recent inventions and total non-issues made up of hyperbolic, misrepresented, or flat-out false examples popularized mainly by the always reliable Fox News and other media outlets, the censorship loving and bigoted
American Family Association, and the
Catholic League which should fix its own house and worry about how they are portraying Christianity in a bad light instead of worrying so much about what everyone else is doing.
If one doesn't care for Christmas then that's one's right, but why insist on dumping on everyone else. Christmas isn't just about goodwill towards Christians, but rather peace and goodwill towards all.
How can anyone really be offended by that?
Except when it comes to goodwill towards others by acknowledging that they also celebrate holidays in late Fall and Winter, and then it gets tossed right out the window because you're not exclusively wishing someone a Merry Christmas.
The only people I've ever actually seen get offended by this are certain Christians who are upset that you wished them Happy Holidays or Seasons Greetings instead of Merry Christmas. They're the irrational ones making a big deal out of nothing when the intent was simply to give you a nice greetings and warm wishes. Why not accept it in the spirit it was given since that's apparently what you want everyone else to do, and is what almost everyone actually does even if they don't celebrate Christmas.
A couple of years ago I recall a news item where someone opined that Santa shouldn't be allowed to say "Ho, ho, ho" anymore because it was offensive to "professional sex trade workers" or something. They seemed to overlook that Santa is laughing out of good cheer and not standing on a busy corner late at night pointing out all the hookers.
Like 99% of this War on Christmas nonsense, that was a misrepresentation of
what actually happened that was then picked up by a media craving controversy and spread to the paranoid masses who have somehow convinced themselves that Christmas is in danger despite it getting more popular all the time.
And just to make sure I don't get pigeonholed into being someone who has a beef against Christmas; while I am an atheist, I LOVE Christmas. It's my favorite holiday of the year (and also my birthday, so I'm kind of biased) and we always do all the typical secular traditions. I even *gasp* bow my head and remain silent when all my relatives pray instead of loudly proclaiming that I think God doesn't exist. Because most people aren't uptight and don't have the time, energy, or desire to make a big deal out of such minor issues no matter how much the media or certain religious groups want to drum up fear about it in order to keep you tuned in or to put butts in the seats.
Sorry for the long rant, but this silly problem comes up every year like clockwork and I have yet to see anyone lined up against the wall for having a Christmas tree in their house. People need to stop whining about this non-issue and unquestioningly buying into everything they're sold by the media and their church.