Monday, December 5th, 2005 at 1:32 pm | In Politics, Other |

It’s unbelievable. Some people actually have the audacity to demean the most important Christian holiday by using the phrase “Happy Holiday” instead of “Merry Christmas”. When I receive cards in the mail this time of year, I expect them to say what they mean: “Merry Christmas”. Forget people of other religions, it’s not their holiday, they don’t need to be included… in greeting cards or advertising or capitalism or anything else that has to do with this time of year. December belongs to those who celebrate Christmas… and it needs to stay that way.

Milwaukee blogger Jessica McBride of McBride’s Media Matters is on the case. She astutely observed that Governor Jim Doyle called the large evergreen that sits in the Capitol rotunda a “holiday tree” instead of a “Christmas tree”. Forget that Tommy Thompson and Scott McCallum did the same thing! That’s not the point.

McBride articulates the reasoning better than I can:

From “Arnold, where are you when we need you? Doyle Renames Christmas“

Can’t we just call a Christmas Tree a Christmas Tree? In order to be sensitive to people of different faiths, let’s put up other things to represent their beliefs too. But why can’t Christians be represented too? Let’s leave the Christmas trees be.

***short break from sarcasm***
I actually do agree with the argument that an evergreen tree covered in ornaments in December should be called a Christmas tree in a situation when it is obviously is such. It’s insulting to people’s intelligence and beliefs to do otherwise. That being said, I respect the desire to be inclusive, and on no terms do I think that either title is significant enough to make a fuss about. Especially not in four different blog posts, as McBride has done. We’ve all got our own beliefs… just make sure you take the time to respect others. Done and done.
***and we’re back***

It looks like McBride has gotten a classy new photo on her site and is sticking with her extremely professional-looking blogger layout.

And she’s working on a mystery novel, set in Milwaukee. It sounds great so far.

Thankfully, noble patriot Bill O’Reilly is leading the charge nationally with his “Christmas Under Siege” campaign.

From BillOReilly.com:

The Yule-tide has turned and the anti-Christmas forces are retreating all over the USA. In Wichita, Kansas it used to be called a ‘community’ tree. Now it’s called a Christmas tree thanks to the city council. In Deerfield, New Hampshire the cops and firefighters say they are putting up a Nativity scene, and you can talk to them if you don’t like it. Walgreen’s now says it made a mistake banning ‘Merry Christmas’ from its advertising and next year Christmas will be back. Lowe’s home improvement centers now say they are selling Christmas trees, not holiday trees. And the biggest victory of all–Macy’s. Last year it would not advertise using Christmas but this year it will.

As I said in my newspaper column this week, three wise men showed up to honor the baby Jesus way back when. And if corporate executives are not wise enough to emulate that, well, those of us who respect Christmas might look elsewhere. Talking points is proud to be a part of the pro-Christmas movement and things are moving our way. But eternal vigilance is the price of freedom and over the next three weeks we will be vigilant on this subject, believe me.

Only you can save Christmas from utter destruction and moral decay this year. Avoid the phrases “season’s greetings” and “happy holidays” at all costs, for they demean everything the season is about. Christians in America are being discriminated against, and it’s not right.

It’s blasphemy that Adam Cohen (hmmm, he could be Jewish) of the New York Times would write an op-ed pointing out the hypocracy of a movement meant to save Christmas. The NYT is all lies anyway:

Excerpt from Cohen’s article “This Season’s War Cry: Commercialize Christmas, or Else”:

Religious conservatives have a cause this holiday season: the commercialization of Christmas. They’re for it.

The American Family Association is leading a boycott of Target for not using the words “Merry Christmas” in its advertising. (Target denies it has an anti-Merry-Christmas policy.) The Catholic League boycotted Wal-Mart in part over the way its Web site treated searches for “Christmas.” Bill O’Reilly, the Fox anchor who last year started a “Christmas Under Siege” campaign, has a chart on his Web site of stores that use the phrase “Happy Holidays,” along with a poll that asks, “Will you shop at stores that do not say ‘Merry Christmas’?”

This campaign - which is being hyped on Fox and conservative talk radio - is an odd one. Christmas remains ubiquitous, and with its celebrators in control of the White House, Congress, the Supreme Court and every state supreme court and legislature, it hardly lacks for powerful supporters. There is also something perverse, when Christians are being jailed for discussing the Bible in Saudi Arabia and slaughtered in Sudan, about spending so much energy on stores that sell “holiday trees.”

What is less obvious, though, is that Christmas’s self-proclaimed defenders are rewriting the holiday’s history. They claim that the “traditional” American Christmas is under attack by what John Gibson, another Fox anchor, calls “professional atheists” and “Christian haters.” But America has a complicated history with Christmas, going back to the Puritans, who despised it. What the boycotters are doing is not defending America’s Christmas traditions, but creating a new version of the holiday that fits a political agenda.

The Puritans considered Christmas un-Christian, and hoped to keep it out of America. They could not find Dec. 25 in the Bible, their sole source of religious guidance, and insisted that the date derived from Saturnalia, the Roman heathens’ wintertime celebration. On their first Dec. 25 in the New World, in 1620, the Puritans worked on building projects and ostentatiously ignored the holiday. From 1659 to 1681 Massachusetts went further, making celebrating Christmas “by forbearing of labor, feasting or in any other way” a crime.

NYT: This Season’s War Cry: Commercialize Christmas, or Else

McBride: Arnold, where are you when we need you? Doyle Renames Christmas

O’Reilly: General Ass-backwards Craziness

Thanks to Jessica McBride for the picture, I snagged it from her site.

***My apolgies for the extreme sarcasm, but wow… is this really happening?***

Update: Journal Sentinel: A crusade over Christmas - Christian group slams secularization; others call issue ‘manufactured’