My Addition to the War

Bonnie sent me this today. If you're one of the people who doesn't read the links I attach, then you're lame. And you're going to miss out, because this one is really good. It's Fuck Christmas, which is written by the same guy who wrote Fuck the South (neither a sentiment I wholly agree with, though oddly, I agree with everything he says in each...go figure...) and it basically addresses this whole myth about the liberal plot against Christmas.

There's a lot written out there about the plot against Christmas (which is as silly a thing to say as "the liberal plot against fluffy bunnies" or "the liberal plot against cute puppies" and is equally fictional) and I have little to add to it (though I'd like to point out that here Gibson cites "Santa dumped from Coke cans..." as one example of the way in which Christmas is being attacked and also mentions Christmas lights and Christmas trees, but fails to bring up one single example of Christ actually being devalued...but I digress), except this: read the subtitle of John Gibson's book. If your eyes aren't that good or you're just lazy, I'll help you. It says:

How the Liberal Plot to Ban the Sacred Christian Holiday is Worse than You Thought

That phrasing "the Sacred Christian Holiday".

I was raised Christian. Not by particularly fanatical parents, but my mom and dad did set out to make sure I had a good Christian education. That I had a good basis in the faith. My dad was active in the church until, one day, he was listening to something someone said and realized "Wow...I don't actually believe any of this." I had a similar moment at the age of thirteen. But thirteen years of Sunday school and Bible reading (admittedly somewhat light when you're Episcopalian) drills a certain knowledge of the faith into you, and let me tell you, Christmas is not the sacred Christian holiday. Not by a long shot. Christmas is not the most sacred holiday to anyone but the big corporations who glut on increased holiday sales.

The most sacred Christian holiday does not happen for another few months. I'm talking about Easter, of course, the real high holy day of the Christian church. The day when Christ died, was resurrected, and assumed his place on the throne of Heaven (assuming you're believe all this). That's the mystery of the Christian church. That's the miracle. That he was born--well, that's no great wonder. More or less everyone does that at some point in their lives.

People like Gibson focus so much energy on the renaming of Christmas trees to holiday tress, the absence of Santa Claus in the public sphere, etc. But these are all pagan elements that have been taken by Christians over the years and made into symbols of Christmas (hell, Gibson even points out in his little rant that these are parts of a Germanic pagan winter festival). When you get right down to it, they are secular elements of the holiday that have been added over the years and adopted by the public sphere, and they have nothing to do with Christ's birth.

If we're arguing that the Christmas trees and lights and Santa are all indivisible now from Christmas, then I'd counter that Christmas has been made, by the importance placed on distinctly non-Christian elements, into a secular holiday. But clearly, it isn't that. Jews don't celebrate it. Nor do Muslims. Nor, to my knowledge, do Hindus or Buddhists or any of the other 20 percent of the population that makes up the rest of this country. So what makes Christmas holy? I don't know...not precisely...but I'd argue that it has more to do with families who come together to be with each other and love each other, with people taking a timeout to share some good will with everyone they meet, with church congregations who come together as a group to celebrate the beginning of their miracle, and with a sort of private revelation, if you are a believer, that the king was born this night and with him, the hope for all mankind. If I'm right, which I think I am, then you'll see that nobody is really able to attack that. And you'll see that, though liberals might have had a hand in making Christmas at large a secular holiday, it is the people on the far right slinging slander who have made it something crass.