Thursday, December 15, 2005

How the "War on Christmas" Rhetoric Works

Last night, while I was waiting for a bus in Park Slope, I saw some people with a Christmas wreath and a Christmas Tree and I thought, "The enemy!"
Wow.
Never have I had such hostility towards Christmas celebrants before. So, you see, the "War on Christmas" works. First, I was just sort of into the festivities of the holiday, the presents, whatever. Now, I seem to have started imagining that everyone who's celebrating the birth of Baby Jesus is potentially an anti-semite in league with Bill O'Reilly. Logically, I know that's not true, but I've come to hate Christmas and Christians because of the wackos who are using the holiday as an excuse to wage "war" on the rest of us. So, I'm completely antagonized by the holiday now.
Good job, right-wing-nuts.
Is this the real goal? They really are the Al Quaeda of America.

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

Christmas is disgusting, it is all about marketing with a tacked on story about some guy being born who was especially bouyant in the Dead Sea. I like buying people presents, but I would like that anytime. When I used to work retail I would spend most of my time evaluating the books on the shelves in terms of who wants what.
With tech gadgets that are obsolete in 4 months being the "must get" gifts it's kind of like running to stand still.

Apparently the new thing this year is upside down Christmas trees. This is the stupidest thing I've ever heard.

Consider if you will the stupidty of the Christmas tree. A dead plant that will shed its needles in the house and you will be vacuuming them up and getting them jabbed into your bare foot until March. Then imagine how big and heavy the fucking thing is and the argument about where the ornaments were stored last year and the argument about whether to spiral the lights around the tree or put several strands vertically. Then when one ape walks just slightly upright into the other room to read rather than engage in the ritual he gets 10 minutes before he is accused of "ruining Christmas" because he won't engage in the argument.

Then imagine multiplying the above stupidity further by putting the Christmas tree upside down.

Santa is dead, his remains were exhumed and stolen by the Vatican from his original grave in Turkey for political reasons.

If I have the opportunity to travel I want to photograph Santas grave and have it laminated onto one of those cheesy greeting cards.

I am all for giving I am all for the happiness of finding out someone else knows you well enough and cares about you enough to suprise you with just the right present. Or vice versa.

For that neither Santa nor Jesus are necessary nor are the largest propaganda efforts in human history.

Anonymous said...

This media-fuled culture war nonsense has had a similar effect on me. i drifted into hostility to xmas in my late teens for no particular reason (partly due to seasonal family group insanity syndrome or SFGIS - pronounced SEAF-jis).
But it was more like a blind spot than a boiling rage. One year i literally walked into the 80-ft. tall xmas tree (made up of zillions of smaller trees wired together) in the lobby of the IDS Building in Mpls. because i simply didn't see it.
But the more they shove this crap down my throat the more antagonized i get. Last year in Hartsfield-Jackson airport there were these crackers in goofy elf suits trying to carol. Tragically, they couldn't hold a note. They sounded like a drunk barbershop quartet. I was talking on my cel phone - but quietly, not shouting by any means - & making fun of them. While the applause had been tepid before, it became aggressively PRO-XMAS! by the people sitting around me. It's like it's not even allowed to have a little bit of a humbug attitude in a public space.
This year, the MUST-NOT-HAVE-ANY-DISSENT-ALL MUST-HAVE-XMAS-CHEER forces have gone over to total war offensive. The attack is (as always w/ the cultural-political right) to claim victim status & make everyone believe that the non-xmasers among us actually have some kind of hegtemony. As Reb says, this does nothing but just make me madder than i was. I've been pushed into an us-them thing that i was never in before.
How about this? Let's take the things they say about others ("OTHERS") & say 'em about them. Here's my first try:
I'm all for the Xtians. I say live and let live. But do they have to FLAUNT it? Why can't they just have their consensual Xtian thing in their private homes? Why do they have to have parades? Why do they have to dress up & prance around in public? Why do they have to demand SPECIAL RIGHTS? Why do they have to SHOVE IT DOWN OUR THROATS?!

Anonymous said...

Hi Rebecca,
Sorry if I monopolized your blog a bit there. I think I will use my off the cuff scribbling here as a jumping off point for an essay that I will include with my December Mix CD. This especially after getting a sneak preview of Christmas at a family gathering this weekend where I found out that radical environmentalists want to ruin Christmas and also more importantly the type of footwear they favor.

Anonymous said...

The real war on christmas:

from the Chicago Sun-Times
"Vandals have twice struck a home in this Metro East town where a black Santa Claus was on display in the yard.

Vandals on Friday stole the Santa and spray-painted a death threat and racial slur on the home of William Glass. Last week, someone tied a noose around the Santa's neck and hung it from a tree."