Okay, here’s another of my out-on-a-limb predictions. I think that over the next two years we’re going to see an evolution of the “War on Christmas” meme into the “Hijacking Christmas” meme.
This year, in three separate places online, I ran into someone espousing — or in the case of Penny Arcade, playing with — the idea that if you’re not a Christian, you should divorce yourself entirely from Christmas. The atheists, agnostics, and nominal Berkeley buddhists out there should not put up Christmas trees, give or accept gifts, expect to be welcome at any Christmas party in any context, so on and so forth. It’s always been the religious folk who are taking this stand. (Although I want to emphasize that it’s not by any means the majority of religious folk. So far it’s just been a few angry voices.)
With “The War on Christmas” making the transition from an ostensible issue to an overused punch line, I think the O’Reillys of the world are going to want a new cause, and it seems to me that “Those nasty non-Christians are victimizing us by enjoying a secular version of our holiday” has a ineffable tang of manufactured controversy combined with the smoky aroma of false oppression that makes for good ratings.
So we’ll have manger scenes in front of City Hall, but we won’t be allowed to look at them? (I had more, but it was a little farther toward “bitter” than “funny.”)
Man, that really does strike me as a strong possibility. Another way for certain pundits to express outrage and bemoan the victimized Christians of the world…
Having nothing to do with Christmas in any context? Sign me up!
Has anybody pointed out yet that Christmas predates Christianity? If not please allow me to point out that Christmas predates Christianity.
I’ve just recently seen one of those hysterical mass emails whose message is basically that we should all write our congressmen and tell any who are voting for assorted apocryphal anti-Christian legislation (e.g. taking “In God we trust” off the money) that they and all federal employees should have to work on Christmas, Easter and Thanksgiving. Don’t know when thanksgiving became specifically Christian, but who’s thinking? I think you’re dead on with this one!
I think you may be right. Ugh. While I wouldn’t mind completely separating the religious holiday and the commercial orgy, I don’t want it to become culture war fodder.
However, Mr. Shayne: At least insofar as the date is concerned, you are mistaken.
That article seems to be saying “Well, we didn’t actually *start* our festival until after they started theirs… but we thought of the date before that, so obviously they ripped us off.” Which, to me, seems… disingenious.
Re Terri’s comment: Thanksgiving days in the US traditionally had a religious meaning–political authorities declared a day to give thanks to the Big Guy Upstairs. The dates varied depending upon the year and didn’t always connect to the traditional Pilgrim story. The current dating–the last Thursday in November–was set out by Abe Licoln in 1864 and has been followed since. (My source for this the Encyclpedia Britannica, 14th ed.) In fact, the official Episcopal Book of Common Prayer has listings for Thanksgiving Day Bible readings, pus a special litany for Thanksgiving.
Aack–”LiNcoln” and “encyclOpedia.” And “pLus.” Damn my fat fingers.
I’m all for making people work on xmas. Damn thing shouldn’t be a federal holiday. And yes, I am offended that there’s a manger on my public green. But who cares what I think? This is Bethlehem! The Christmas town! Fucking Hicksville, Connecticut.
Unnunilium: Not sure I follow your point. If you mean that Christians weren’t the first to have a winter holiday, then you’re right, but that doesn’t get you very far. The point of the article, it seemed to me, was that the establishment of the date of Christmas had nothing to do with pagan winter solstices.
In general, the appropriation of aspects of pagan religion into the development of early Christianity bothers me not in the slightest. To me it seems like sensible marketing: Why would you alienate potential converts by denigrating their deep-seated religious practices and traditions, when it’s much more savvy, and humanitarian, to include those practices while engendering the core principles of the new faith. That’s much more preferable than the witch hunts and inquisitions and obsession with ritual purity that haunted Christianity centuries later.
Christmas was never originally Christian in the first place, it was originally a pagan celebration, but the church adopted it because they couldn’t get people to stop celebrating it.
But, Mr. Bangs: At least insofar as the traditions of the holiday are concerned (The tree, mistletoe, etc.) I am correct.
Well, what I’m saying is, the pagan winter holiday on that date came decades before the Christian winter holiday on that date. Even though the date already had a meaning in Christianity, to claim that the pagan holiday existed solely to hijack said date seems too much.
But I agree on the second part. The whole thing doesn’t bother me, really, I’m just annoyed by people trying to apply “spin” to history. `.`
You’re covering a lot of ground when you talk about “pagan” holidays. There’s the Roman Saturnalia, which was the first holiday Christmas replaced, then there’s Yule, which it replaced when it syncretized with Scandinavian and Germanic paganisms. There’s probably others but those are the one’s I know the names of.
I think the best argument of how little Christianity has to do with Christmas is how little historical veracity there is to the “first Christmas” stories in the New Testament. Even when compared to the rest of the story of Jesus. The census thing doesn’t make sense (you don’t return to your place of birth for a census) There’s no historical record of Herod’s order to kill first-borns. Matthew and Luke differ on weird details, and Mark and John don’t mention the birth of Jesus at all. It all smacks of some tall tales after the fact to make the man seem more important.
Just eliminate the Xmas carols that try to tie things together by depicting Bethlehem covered with snow.
I belive the exact opposite. Christmas should be celebrated by anybody and everybody. You should be allowed to leave the Christian parts out if you like. Look at the Japanese. Hardly a christian country, but they celebrate Christmas anyway. Nothing wrong in taking some time off and having fun and Chritmas is as good an excuse as any.
The “Christmas is being hijacked” meme predates the word “meme.”
Well, I’m sure it does, and I’m sure the idea behind “The War on Christmas” was around a lot longer than O’Reilly’s show, and probably longer than O’Reilly. But in the same way that The War on Christmas has lately risen to cultural prominence, my prediction is that “You shouldn’t celebrate Christmas unless you’re a Christian” will be next up to the plate.
Oh, I don’t doubt it for a second! I was just hanging a shiny ball on the “this-predates-that” tree.
@ham: I don’t know if Bethlehem ever gets snowed on, but apparently Jerusalem does. I’m going there next month for the first time and was told to pack a winter coat in case it snows.
I shudder to apply this sentence to Mr. Orally, but: It makes sense. I don’t celebrate Hanukah or Ramadan either. What would make more sense is all of these superstitious dickheads realizing that religion is a waste of time, but until then, maybe they could just shut up and keep it to themselves. (Oh, and that includes not starting the 24-hour Christmas carol radio station formats at 12:01 a.m. on Nov. 1.)
Sorry for a short correction in the midst of some pretty thoughtful discussion, but I think you meant this Penny Arcade post, not whichever one happens to be most current.
There’s a cycle to this. I almost made it into a comic strip once.
“Happy Holidays!”
“No no NO! It’s Christmas, dammit! Christmas!”
“Oh, sorry. Merry Christmas!”
“You can’t celebrate Christmas! Christmas is for Christians!”
“Oh, sorry. Happy Holidays!”
who cares about christmas anyway? I celebrate yule mostly because there is nothing wrong with partying for 12 days.
The other reason is it takes me 7 days to recover after 5 days of partying.
Wow everybody, it is Thanksgiving Day! I’m happy with my extra day off, and I am planning to make something fun that’ll probably involve a car trip and seeing something new in Petal I haven’t seen yet.
You write something new at Thanksgiving?
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