Say no to "Holiday Wars" and just enjoy the season...

Shane99X · Dec 11, 2006

Honestly, shut up about the "real" christmas, or about how it was stolen from pagans, or how a tree violates the constitution...

just shut up and enjoy the eggnog, your kids don't care either way, they just like shiny gifts.

Happy holidays, all of them!

- Shane99X

No War on Christmas

Charley Reese
Lew Rockwell.com
Monday, December 11, 2006

Since I've given up watching the chattering class on cable news and the network Sunday talk shows, I don't know what phony controversies they are currently stirring up. If one of them is the old "war on Christmas," don't buy it. Christmas is a Christian holiday, but you don't have to repent of your sins and be baptized to enjoy it. The Christmas tree and the exchange of gifts are not part of the religious aspects of the holiday. Anybody who wants to can have a Christmas tree and exchange gifts. Even Santa Claus is today only remotely connected to St. Nicholas, the patron saint of Russia.

Sextus Julius Africanus designated Dec. 25 as Christmas in 221 A.D. It was celebrated in Rome by 336 A.D. During medieval times, when Europe was known as Christendom, it was a very popular holiday, and new religious services were written for it.

The exchange of gifts began in the 15th century, and yule logs, cakes and fir trees were adopted from German and Celtic cultures. The modern decorated tree was adopted by German Lutherans and brought to North America by early German settlers. It was popularized in 19th-century England by Queen Victoria's consort, Prince Albert of Saxe-Coburg.

When the Protestant Reformation began, St. Nicholas was largely dropped from the season except in Holland, where he was known as Sinterklaas. Dutch settlers brought him to New York, where he was Americanized as Santa Claus.

So what is there to war about? Christmas is a holiday that has a religious part and a secular part. Take your choice. I remember reading an article by the daughter of Jack Benny, the great Jewish comedian. She said they always had a Christmas tree, and that she and her siblings joined the other children in singing Christmas carols.

Today, some try to keep Christmas carols out of public schools, as if singing a song were some great polemic in favor of Christianity. That's nonsense, of course. Much of the world's great art has been inspired by the world's various religions. A faith so shaky as to be disturbed by a song is hardly a faith.

As for secularizing public education, that simply cheats the students of good education. Even in today's secular times, religion plays an important part in the lives of people all over the world. One cannot know history without knowing the role the various religions have played in it.

The First Amendment, as is clear from the statements of the people who wrote it and ratified it, was designed to protect religion from government, not vice versa. When Tom Jefferson wrote in a letter to some Baptists about the "wall of separation between church and state," he was merely reiterating that there would never be a U.S.-government-sponsored church.

One has to remember that when Jefferson was growing up, the Anglican Church was the official church of Virginia, and Virginians of all faiths were taxed to support it. His argument was that nobody should be compelled to support a belief he did not share. I would hope that all Americans would agree with that, but I also recognize that it in no way even implies hostility toward religion.

Singing songs or hearing prayers, whether by a preacher, a rabbi, a priest or an imam, cannot be construed by any reasonable person as compelling the listener to support a particular religion.

So, ignore all the hypersensitive soreheads, and have yourself a merry Christmas, whatever your faith or lack thereof. Nothing in the world is wrong with beauty, good food, good will and good fellowship. When I look at my Christmas tree, I feel no mysterious urge to become a pagan or a Lutheran. I just enjoy the beauty.
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Bongish · Dec 11, 2006

shut up??

how about "fuck you".

I don't want christmas, and shouldn't have to deal with it if I don't want to.

Fuck you, and don't tell me how and what I must enjoy.

Yourcrazedpoet · Dec 12, 2006

how about just let people celebrate their holidays their own way?

as opposed to bitching about every little sign of religion that anyone should ever show.

Shane99X · Dec 12, 2006

Yourcrazedpoet said:

how about just let people celebrate their holidays their own way?

as opposed to bitching about every little sign of religion that anyone should ever show.
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Exactly!

All i hear is about how there is too much religion or not enough.

just enjoy the presents ans celebrate your holiday your way.

BlackBillBlake · Dec 12, 2006

Hard to take it all very seriously. Just an orgy of comercialism. How many million plastic santas can you sell year on year to idiots?

Bongish · Dec 12, 2006

BlackBillBlake said:

Hard to take it all very seriously. Just an orgy of comercialism. How many million plastic santas can you sell year on year to idiots?
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the key word here is "idiots"

and the answer is: idiots can never have enough dumb idiot shit to remind themselves of how dumb and idiotic their dumb idiotic bullshit is important to them.

BlackBillBlake · Dec 12, 2006

Bongish said:

the key word here is "idiots"

and the answer is: idiots can never have enough dumb idiot shit to remind themselves of how dumb and idiotic their dumb idiotic bullshit is important to them.
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sad to say, you are right. But it's not entirely their own fault - they've been programmed that way from birth.

themnax · Dec 15, 2006

Shane99X said:

Honestly, shut up about the "real" christmas, or about how it was stolen from pagans, or how a tree violates the constitution...

just shut up and enjoy the eggnog, your kids don't care either way, they just like shiny gifts.

Happy holidays, all of them!

- Shane99X

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would it be ok if i just call it midwinter's eve and don't mention ANY flavor of fanatacism in connection with it?
trees and lights, with or without presents, or mangers?
and lights, just a few colored ones to be pretty, not a zillion illuminated raindeer on the front lawn to try and impress anybody.

i'm not interested in the capitolist feeding frenzy, OR that poor bastart who got wrongfully exicuted by a paranoid government 2000 years ago, as if that was the first or last time such a thing ever happened.

i AM interested in ways of preventing that sort of thing, eventualy from ever happening.

along with trains and trees and the smell of pine needles. and people being loving and mellow. i mean isn't that what that guy supposedly died for? whatEVER else he may or may not have been.

=^^=
.../\...

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