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Leave it to the Religious Right to turn Santa Claus into a wedge issue and exchange the gift of seasonal cheer for a box of holiday fear. Thanks to their histrionic "War on Christmas" campaign, major retailers, including Wal-Mart and Walgreen Co. are now dumping "Happy Holidays" for "Merry Christmas" and piping in religious Christmas carols.
"They're all trying to get the spirit back," industry analyst Marshal Cohen told the Los Angeles Times.
Is he talking about the universal Christmas Spirit or the sectarian Holy Spirit? This sudden change of heart was due to an intensive lobbying campaign last year by right wing organizations, such as the American Family Association and Liberty Counsel, and conservative pundits like Sean Hannity and Ann Coulter. While mainstream Americans went to the store with a shopping list, conservatives showed up with a political agenda, checking chains once and twice to see if they were naughty or nice.
Yes, their tireless efforts to divide America paid off and Jesus is now officially the "Reason for the Season." With this monumental change, we can purchase Sin on sale to the soundtrack of Silent Night. Praise the American Family Association for they have put morals back into the mall. With the new Big Box Bible plan, you can also get that violent video game for your child, confess your wickedness while in line and be absolved by the time you swipe your American Express.
You know what, if Jesus were a greeter at Wal-Mart, I bet he’d welcome customers with the more inclusive "Happy Holidays."
Jesus was about humility and respecting other people, while this phony "War on Christmas" is about humiliation and disrespecting the views of others. This is a muscular version of religion that seeks to overpower and stomp on diversity.
The reason that retail stores began to say "Happy Holidays" was a recognition that many of their shoppers were not Christians. It was not a war on anyone or anything, but a matter of courtesy, good manners, and common decency. After all, why would a genuine Christian want to want to tell a Hindu, Jew or atheist "Merry Christmas?"
It makes no sense unless the hidden goal is to intimidate people and cow them into accepting religious supremacy of the majority religion. This is the right wings way to let you know that they are in charge and that this is a fundamentalist Christian nation and you are merely renting space, thanks to their overwhelming generosity.
If you break it down, this is really about proselytizing. It is a sort of Jesus tax, that lets non-believers shop for the holidays if they are willing to pay the price of constantly having to bow before another's deity.
This issue does not seem like a big deal on the surface since it is largely symbolic. However, if you look at the way the right wing incorporates symbols and then uses them to bludgeon opponents, there is reason to worry. They often point to the dollar bill and say, "See, it says 'in God we trust!' Doesn't that prove we are a Christian nation? Or, they will point to the Pledge of Allegiance and say, "It says one nation under God, so we can deny gay people equality or teach creationism in public schools because it is our' country."
As with these other symbols, the extremists want to hijack the shared shopping experience that holds us together and remake it in their own mean-spirited image. While Merry Christmas may be a truly joyous message to Christians, it may not be entirely benign to others. It is the celebration of the birth of Jesus and to make other people share in the religious festivities when they enter a Wal-Mart is wrong.
These large chains should reverse course and not give in to the demagogues on the fringe. After getting creamed in the elections, the conservatives get this consolation prize while they lick their wounds. For now, they may have won Wal-Mart and Walgreens in their War on Christmas, but in doing so they have lost their reason for the season, which is love, peace and goodwill for all.
20 Comments:
As a Jew, I have never been offended by the term "Merry Christmas". I find it shocking however, that it is supposedly the "Jesus following" Christians that were offended by the term "Happy Holidays". After all, is it ever wrong to give someone good wishes? Are they godless, heathens if they don't use the exact terminology you want? And which is a Christian virtue? Being considerate of all people or screaming and throwing accusations at the ones who are trying to be considerate?
The worst thing is that between this issue and the darts being thrown at Walmart lately for their supposed "gay agenda", These pseudo Christians are making me take Walmart's side! I hate that!
A message to those who want to follow Jesus... Read ! Cor 9:17-19. It sheds some good light on how you should view your own rights vs. the rights of others.
posted by Anonymous, at
11/14/2006 6:33 PM
There are many many marginalized christians in this country who want to hear Merry Christmas again. That is how the Holiday started out and that is what most of the songs are about. This is not a ploy by the religious right. Many have wanted to be able to say Merry Christmas or Happy Hanakah or whatever without offending people and homoginizing every aspect of our cultural lives. So what! Some want Santa, some want Jesus, some want the Maccabees.
posted by Anonymous, at
11/14/2006 8:39 PM
Speaking as a Christian clergyman, two points need to be made: 1. The Puritans who settled this country regarded Christmas as a PAGAN holiday that was forbidden to TRUE CHRISTIANS (Catholics and Anglicans being considered pagans and not real Christians) and, in fact, in most of the New England colonies, the celebration of Christmas was a criminal offense. 2. Liturgical Christians (Catholic, Orthodox, Anglican, Lutheran) observe a penitential preparation period, Advent, from the fourth Sunday before Christmas until December 24. During this period, Christmas greetings and music are inappropriate. Christmas begins on the evening of December 24 and continues through January 6 (Dec 25 - Jan 5 are the "Twelve Days of Christmas").
The AFA and other idiots who are waging this "war for Christmas" are basically arguing for the sacredness of the secular holiday celebration that is the creation of American department stores for the purpose of making money and which is not actually based in Christian tradition.
As someone once said, the religious right is to true religion what paint-by-number is to great art.
Hi Regan' how'ya doin' sweetie. I was just checking to see if you had replied to anything and here you are. It was wonderful meeting you this weekend at "love breaks out" Jaylen
posted by Anonymous, at
11/15/2006 12:48 AM
Whoever lables "Happy Holidays" as politically correct is an ignorant fool. A Christian jihadist doesn't realize that we also have Hanukkah and New Year's Day around the same time.
Also, the assholes at Fox News (like Sean Hannity, Bill O'Reilly, and John Gibson) are the real Scrooges, smearing their wingnut perversions on Christmas.
How about pushing for the removal of tax-exempt status for any religious faith-based organization/denomination that interferes with and influences the political outcome of legislation that discriminates against our community? Maybe when they're coffers are impacted by taxation, they might shut-up and stop obsessing over our sexuality. The ones who protest too much are the most suspect of all, witness the Ted Haggard fiasco.
To anonymous 8:39--actually Jesus isn't the reason for the season. The winter solstice (Pagan Yule, Roman Saturnalia) is the reason for the season. Biblical scholars have determined that Christ was most likely born in the spring. Chritianity was ingenious in adapting its holy days to the customs and holy days of those it wished to convert. I'm not criticizing, just recognizing. And yes this is a ploy by the right wingnuts to keep their base juiced up, especially after having LOST BIG TIME in the recent elections. Ann Coultergeist, Sean Hannity et. al. speaking for Christianity is like Ronald McDonald becoming a spokesman for the Organic Farmers Asso. Gary (NJ)
posted by Anonymous, at
11/15/2006 10:05 AM
Bet the switch to "Merry Christmas" doesn't hurt sales at all...it'll probably strengthen them.
In the end that will mean more money in many people's pockets, including some GLBT ones.
posted by Anonymous, at
11/15/2006 10:27 AM
In reply to Tim Cravens... I was raised Roman Catholic and we observed Advent, but it was never a time of penitence like Lent, but rather a time of joyful preparation for the coming of Christ. We had Christmas greetings and music. In church we didn't sing the Christmas carols but we sang pre-Christmas carols of stuff like "Veni Veni Emanuel/O Come, O Come Emmanuel" and "People Look East". I'm wondering where he got his information about Catholics not doing that. His Independent Catholic Church must be different.
I agree with him, though, in that the secular holiday of Chrismas (notice the lack of t... not-Christ based) is quite different from the sacred holiday of Christmas and it always has been. The religious right is quite wrong in coopting the secular holiday for the sacred one.
We celebrated both holidays in my home, and there was always a distinct difference between the feel of the secular holiday and the sacred. I have memories of the excitement of the secular holiday as well as memories of the beauty of the peaceful moments of the sacred.
Part of the problem is that we try to be inclusive by saying "Happy Holidays", but if you step back and look at it, even the secular holiday is very Christmas based. Judaism is now also part of my spiritual path and I've stepped back and looked at mid-December through Jewish eyes and there's really no celebration in there for people who aren't Christian. Hanukkah is a minor holiday in the Jewish calendar and it's obvious that people/culture just throw in Hanukkah because it's the "right thing to do". And you don't see much centered around Yule or Saturnalia or Solstice for my Pagan or Earth-Based Religion/Spiritual friends. There's the tree with lights and there's the yule log sometimes, and yule is mentioned in carols, but it's not really there.
All that aside, I will be wishing everyone a Happy Holiday this year, because I live in an area with great religious diversity (and a decent Jewish population) and I feel it is INCLUSIVE of Christianity's Christmas, as well as all the other holidays. I really do wish Christians the happiest and holiest Christmas, and when I say "Happy Holidays" to them, I want that to be conveyed within. Also, it's easier to say Happy Holidays to your friends than try to remember what each individual person celebrates (and with the syncretic and pluralistic views my friends have, it's not always obvious or easy). And I know that when someone says the same to me, they're wishing me happiness and joy, whether it's during the lighting of my menorah, the celebration of Yule, my observance of the Humanist holiday of Human Light, during my attendance Christmas mass, or the opening of Chrismas presents under the tree.
posted by Anonymous, at
11/15/2006 12:30 PM
Well shit - just as long as Santa gets to my house on time and leaves some presents - I don't care what you call it.
posted by Anonymous, at
11/15/2006 2:41 PM
O'Reilly, Hannity and the rest of the Scrooges are trying to squeeze the last little bit of cheer out of Christmas and make sure their followers are angry 365 days a year and not just 364.
posted by Sam, at
11/15/2006 3:11 PM
"So have yourself a Merry Christmas, a Happy Haunnakah, a Kwaazy Kwaanza, a Tip Top Tet, and very solemn Ramadan." --Krusty the Clown closing out his Christmas Special
1. It's a Christian holiday so it really should be observed how Christians want to observe it. It sounds all nice to say that they should use words you'd like or that it should be "about joy and caring" or whatever, but ultimately it's a religious holiday and others have no more right to redefine it than Pat Robertson has to redefine Purim.
2. The tradition of giving gifts goes back a long way (Puritans notwithstanding) and vendors simply are responding to the market.
3. It isn't disrespectful of other religions to observe your own.
4. Just because Christians want to hear "Merry Christmas" doesn't mean they like mistreatment of other groups. I find it annoying that other religions are ignored entirely during the autumn. I was in Macys (of all places) one year during the High Holy Days and was offended that there were Christmas decorations everywhere already and no recognition of the Jewish holidays. I kinda went off on some poor cashier who really had no control over the situation, which in retrospect was not very kind of me.
5. If stores continue trends of starting the Shopping Season earlier and earlier, they will have a backlash. I don't go into a mall between mid-October and thanksgiving because I don't want to be bombarded with Christmas yet... I like it being a special time, not three months.
6. Hearing "happy holidays" never hurt a person. But neither has "merry Christmas". There's no need for a war. In rural Kansas use "Merry Christmas" and in Beverly Hills use "Happy Holidays" and get over it.
posted by Timothy Kincaid, at
11/17/2006 7:14 PM
I don't care whether folks wish me merry christmas or happy holidays. Frankly, with customer service that way it is today, I'm happy with "have a nice day," or even, "Thank you."
posted by jekelhyde, at
11/19/2006 7:55 PM
