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Saturday, December 12, 2009
Who's afraid of Christmas? (Part 1)
Like many thinking Christians, I have decried the systematic banishment of the word "Christmas" from public parlance. I have seen stores selling "Holiday trees" as if there was any other holiday in any religion that involved a evergreen tree adorned with lights. By now we are all being wished "happy holidays" by merchants, co-workers, and anyone else whith whom we come in contact. I used to think that "happy holidays" was just a shorthand way of including Thanksgiving, Christmas and New Year's day into one compact phrase, and maybe it used to be--before the first ad for a "holiday tree".
While I'm on "Holiday Trees" let me ask this: if the goal of using this generic term is an Oh-so-American attempt to neuter the term so as not to offend anyone, who are the people who are buying these trees in the first place? The only people buying them are people who are at least nominal enough Christians to have a gree in the first place! I'm not for a second implying that anyone with a Christmas tree is automatically a Christian, but I do feel that if you are going to celebrate the Holiday of Christmas, with all the warm emotionals and joy that go with it (more on this later) that at a bare minimum, you should be willing to pronounce the word out loud and--gasp--even be willing to write it!
I cannot for the life of me understand the cognitive dissonance of celebrating Christmas, but refusing to say the word. I can understand and respect those who--for any reason--chose not to celebrate Christmas, whether they are an honest atheist or whether they adhere to another religion. The interesting thing is that in my small, unscientific personal survey, these people are actually more likely to wish me a "Merry Christmas" than the christian (use of lower case deliverate to reflect the nominal nature of that label) who go home to a Holiday Tree.
Remberber folks, in this country the only group that is allowed to be offended is Christians, even though a large majority of Americans are at least Christian enough to have a Christmas tree in thier home and gladly take the day off from work.
While I'm on "Holiday Trees" let me ask this: if the goal of using this generic term is an Oh-so-American attempt to neuter the term so as not to offend anyone, who are the people who are buying these trees in the first place? The only people buying them are people who are at least nominal enough Christians to have a gree in the first place! I'm not for a second implying that anyone with a Christmas tree is automatically a Christian, but I do feel that if you are going to celebrate the Holiday of Christmas, with all the warm emotionals and joy that go with it (more on this later) that at a bare minimum, you should be willing to pronounce the word out loud and--gasp--even be willing to write it!
I cannot for the life of me understand the cognitive dissonance of celebrating Christmas, but refusing to say the word. I can understand and respect those who--for any reason--chose not to celebrate Christmas, whether they are an honest atheist or whether they adhere to another religion. The interesting thing is that in my small, unscientific personal survey, these people are actually more likely to wish me a "Merry Christmas" than the christian (use of lower case deliverate to reflect the nominal nature of that label) who go home to a Holiday Tree.
Remberber folks, in this country the only group that is allowed to be offended is Christians, even though a large majority of Americans are at least Christian enough to have a Christmas tree in thier home and gladly take the day off from work.
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