Tis the Season to be a Frickin' Douchebag...Falalalalala....

[malasadas.livejournal.com]

Hat tip to telemann for the video link...Jon Stewart has aired his annual first shot at the yearly attempt to manufacture a "War Against Christmas" among the Fox News commentariat. Go ahead and watch the whole thing. I'll wait.



Now to be entirely fair, complaints about the nature of Christmas in the United States of America did not originate with Fox News and are not recent. Tom Lehrer presented the following song as an appropriate Christmas Carol for the year 1959:

Nevertheless, there is something odd about the past ten years or so of complaints about Christmas being "spoiled" by efforts of including some of the other religious holidays that share a common season in our pluralistic society or even acknowledging that others celebrate no specific holiday. It's led to a staggering amount of huffing and puffing and even periodic boycotts of retailers who, in an attempt to draw a broader crowd of holiday shoppers, offer "Season's Greetings" instead of "Merry Christmas".

The alleged "war" has taken to billboards in the New York metropolitan area where an atheist group paid for this billboard approaching the Lincoln Tunnel:



And found themselves countered by The Catholic League a short while later:



All of which gets me thinking of my first encounter with allegations that Christmas was "under assault". It was 1987, and I was 18 years old, returning home from my first semester of college to a small town in Massachusetts that was nearly 70% Jewish. Despite this demographic oddity, the fire department of the town annually decorated Town Hall in lights and a fairly garish, plastic, lit Santa Claus. The center of town was usually decorated tastefully with wreaths and white lights.

Well, right around my beginning high school, our town attracted a group of Chabad Labuvitch, a sub sect of Hassidic Jews who have a particular and peculiar mission. Among their various philosophies is a movement to bring about Messiah -- in fact, some in Chabad actually believe to this day that their late leader, Rabbi Menachem Schneerson WAS the Messiah. But even those who do not believe it is their duty to bring all Jews to a PROPER expression of our faith...which if you know anything about Judaism is a really funny project.

Labuvitchers do this by being uncharacteristically upfront about their faith and even in your face, especially if you are a Jew. Here in New York City, they operate a giant Sukkahmobile so that they can invite people they think are Jewish inside to participate in the Mitzvah of sitting in a Sukkah during the holiday of Sukkhot -- Now if you can imagine the controversy that a bunch of bearded men in large black overcoats might engender when they invite elementary school aged kids into a truck with them, you can probably guess that, unlike most Hassidim, Labuvitchers are not adverse to controversy and public attention.

So in my little town, this group's rabbi went to our town's board of selectmen and insisted that if the fire department was putting up a giant plastic Santa Claus on town property, they should also accommodate the rabbi's GIANT EIGHT FOOT TALL CHANNUKAH MENORAH which had previously only been visible to cars that passed his house on Main Street. The board accomodated him -- for one year, and in 1987 they declared that displays of specific religions should not be on town property, but the general holiday theme of lights was fine.

You would have thought that someone had taken Rudolph, cut him loose from his sleigh harness and stuck him on a roasting spit while he was still alive...all in front of the children's choir. People wrote lengthy, weepy letters to the town paper declaring that the "Grinch" had taken over town hall and protesting that Santa Claus was just a "jolly old elf for ALL children." While I was somewhat sympathetic (largely out of my belief that Chabad was a giant pain in the town's collective tuchus), I could not agree with the assessment of Santa Claus as a symbol for all children. Saint Nicholas is not a Jewish figure or a Muslim figure or a Hindu figure or an atheist figure -- he's a Christian Saint, and it is not only demeaning to other religions to graft him on their faiths, it is demeaning to Christianity to deflate an important figure to nothing more than the last car of the Macy's parade.

Now, more than two decades later, I have lived in plenty of places with very few Jews, and I know full well that I am a religious minority in this country and the vast majority celebrates and observes Christmas as a religious holiday. Even in New York City, I have to find constant ways this time of year to explain to my almost four year old daughter that we won't get a Christmas tree for our home no matter how much she wants one...spurned on by the omnipresence of Christmas and her inability to comprehend the importance of us being Jews not Christians.

I don't hold any grudge or desire for entitlement in the face of that, but I cannot help but wonder why some people feel such an urgent need to portray almost any nod towards a more pluralistic holiday season either from government or corporations as a "war" against the Christianity of Christmas. I see lots of lights up. I hear lots of music in public spaces that is geared towards Christmas. And while it is utterly dickish to try to purge any trace of Christianity from public view, it is even more dickish to wail that this is actually happening on any grand scale or that minor efforts like relabeling a parade constitutes an attack on Christians.

Comments

[rasilio.livejournal.com]

Why don't you have a Christmas Tree or give gifts on the 25th.

Do you celebrate the 4th of July?
How about New Years?
Labor Day?
Thanksgiving?

That Christmas has religious overtones to some is completely irrelevant to the fact that it is also an important cultural holiday and in fact NONE, that is right absolutely none of the traditions associated with the cultural holiday are Christian in Origin.

Saying I won't celebrate Christmas because it is Christian is just foolish because it is NOT Christian and never really has been.

Hell it was not until sometime in the late 1880's that the Catholic church even began allowing it's members to have Christmas celebrations, prior to that the practice was considered pagan and officially forbidden (not that very many listened).

[telemann.livejournal.com]

Hell it was not until sometime in the late 1880's that the Catholic church even began allowing it's members to have Christmas celebrations.

Really?

[underlankers.livejournal.com]

I doubt that was the case given that Christmas is short for Christ's Mass, but it certainly was true of US Protestantism.

[meus-ovatio.livejournal.com]

Handel was very old at that point.

[telemann.livejournal.com]

Haha ;)

I thought he was long dead and buried in Westminster Abbey.

[rasilio.livejournal.com]

http://www.uwyo.edu/uw/news/2010/12/uw-religion-today-column-dec.-12-18-banned-christmas.html


Mostly although my dates are somewhat off as it was the mid 1800's not late 1800's and it was the Protestants who were still opposing Christmas not the Catholics.

While the Catholic church did have a Christ Mas (Feast of Christ) in it's liturgical calendar the practice of it was very different from what we would associate with Christmas and during the Middle Ages the Catholic church actively discouraged the traditions that we typically associate with the Holiday today (Decorated Trees, Gift Giving, etc.) as they were really Pagan in origin.

[underlankers.livejournal.com]

The Medieval Catholic church also considered belief in witchcraft a heresy, and it was the Protestants who started to take the concept seriously.....

[telemann.livejournal.com]

Oh I see what you mean. Those were fundamentalist, evangelical types that were opposed to celebrating the holidays. I disagree with the statement on Luther though on that webpage, but Lutheranism was pretty divergent on that stuff, with varying degrees of "high church" with the growth of Pietism in Germany. Bach worked at a pretty high-church Lutheran parish in Leipzig, they even used Marian hymns for Verspers (!) in Latin for Christmas, Easter, and Pentecost. That's something no one in the Missouri Synod would tolerate.

[novapsyche.livejournal.com]

Why don't you have a Christmas Tree or give gifts on the 25th.

Do you celebrate the 4th of July?
How about New Years?
Labor Day?
Thanksgiving?

That is the most fatuous question I've seen asked here.

I celebrate New Year's Day, Labor Day & Thanksgiving precisely because there is no religious content. Those holidays, with the exception of New Year's, are state holidays. I used to celebrate Christmas & Easter, but I no longer do, because I no longer identify as Christian. (However, I would be justified in celebrating Christmas since it was initially a pagan holiday.)

I don't celebrate Chinese New Year because I'm not Chinese. I don't celebrate Passover because I'm not Jewish. I don't celebrate Cinco de Mayo because I'm not Mexican. &c.

Christmas is certainly contemporarily Christian as it has been coopted by the Christian church. I daresay that most people who celebrate Christmas are Christians, which would put the lie to your assertion that the holiday is not Christian.

it was not until sometime in the late 1880's that the Catholic church even began allowing it's members to have Christmas celebrations

That is rather irrelevant to whether the holiday is celebrated as Christian today.

[rasilio.livejournal.com]

Yes, and you know what the overwhelming majority of those who celebrate Thanksgiving and New Years Day are also Christian.

New Years day is based on the CHRISTIAN Calendar

WHOM exactly do you think was being thanked at the first Thanksgiving? Whom do you think Sarah Josepha Hale intended that people give their thanks to?

Both of those Holidays are every bit as Christian in Origin as Christmas.

Further do you realize that nearly 80% of those who celebrate the 4th of July are Christians?

ZOMG The 4th of July is a Christian Holiday

And lets be serious there are plenty of Fundies who do believe it should be a Christian Holiday because they believe America to have been founded as a Christian Nation.

[malasadas.livejournal.com]

Further do you realize that nearly 80% of those who celebrate the 4th of July are Christians?

ZOMG The 4th of July is a Christian Holiday


That's ridiculous and you certainly know why -- the Fourth of July celebrates a historical event. When observed in a country made up mostly of Christians it does not become "Christian" because not a whit of its origins is rooted in religiosity.

You can't set aside the religious nature of Christmas simply because it has no religious meaning to you and you've decided you like decorated trees.

[novapsyche.livejournal.com]

I'm trying to have a reasonable discussion. You're the one utilizing spurious logic.

Because this getting

[geezer-also.livejournal.com]

a bit too serious......

I'm 1/4 Irish and I don't celebrate St Patrick's day, even tho lots of my friend who don't a drop of Irish blood do....Why? Because I don't drink.

Re: Because this getting

[airiefairie.livejournal.com]

Too bad. I am half Irish and I do not mind celebrating Saint Patrick's Day. (But not for the whiskey)...

[rasilio.livejournal.com]

Yes really.

I'm an Atheist remember, My Wife is a Neopagan and WE have a Christmas Tree and give gifts. If we can why can't he?

Tell me, where in the Bible do they mention an evergreen tree in relation to Jesus Birth? Where do they mention to give gifts to each other?

Fact is Neither one of those practices are Christian in Origin and since we have a cultural celebration built around them I see no reason why people of all faiths cannot partake in them.

"Kill a Tree for Christ"

[russj.livejournal.com]

"Kill a Tree for Christ"
by Celtic Elvis

Kill a tree for Christ
It's such a festive sacrifice...


mp3 available here:
http://www.wildplum.org/celticelvis/

[mijopo.livejournal.com]

Oh, come on, christmas trees are firmly rooted in Christian tradition and fully Christian in origin by most all accounts. start here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christmas_tree

You're particularly sloppy today, are you drunk?

[malasadas.livejournal.com]

If we can why can't he

Because Christian theology is directly in contradiction to big parts of my own.

[spaz-own-joo.livejournal.com]

Practicing Jews have their own tradition around the same time of year, which also gives them an opportunity to change the decor and exchange gifts. Plus, Jews have rules about idolatry which atheists don't, which means many of them are less free to pick-and-choose from other religions' traditions, even if they're leaving out the theological (nativity) part.

[geezer-also.livejournal.com]

I normally agree with you, but I'm shaking my head at this one.

"If we can why can't he?"

I'm sorry but this sounds almost like you think he should be required to (I may be inferring too much) or because he doesn't he is less of an American (definitely reading too much into it) which is for sure against conservative/ libertarian values.

[malasadas.livejournal.com]

Christmas is most certainly not, as the celebration of the birth of Jesus as Christ, a non-religious holidays.

The cultural trappings of that holiday as celebrated today in the west might be innocuous to your sensibilities. As a practicing Jew raising my children as Jews, adopting them would be participating in the celebration of Christian cosmology and theology.

I'm not going to do that in my home. I am happy to wish my Christian friends a Merry Christmsa. I am fine with living in a culture where that is the modal greeting this time of year.

I'm not going to do things that directly contradict my religion within my home.

[rasilio.livejournal.com]

Hey you are free to do as you see fit with your family, I'm just saying it is not the only viable interpretation and that there is nothing terribly "Christian" about how Christmas is celebrated in America.

[malasadas.livejournal.com]

I'm just saying it is not the only viable interpretation and that there is nothing terribly "Christian" about how Christmas is celebrated in America.


You might see that differently if you were religious AND non-Christian.

And saying over and over again that there is "no reason" to not celebrate Christmas when I have some very good reasons to not do so is simply saying that what makes sense to you should make sense to everyone.

[singlethink.livejournal.com]

There is nothing terribly "Christian" about any Christian holiday. Name one "Christian" holiday.

Christmas? - Stolen from pagans
Easter? - Same, but with more bunnies
Lent? - kind of like a New Years resolution

The point is, is that I wouldn't celebrate "National Genocide Day" even it if was celebrated by giving candy to children and giving food to the poor. I simply don't agree with the purpose/idea of the holiday. I'll find other days to do nice things and be jolly.