CHRISTMAS -- GOING,
GOING... GONE?
GrassTopsUSA Exclusive Commentary
By Don Feder
Christmas music of the future:
“Have Yourself A Merry Little Holiday,” “I’m
Dreaming of a White Holiday,” “I’ll Be Home For
Holiday.”
Christmas is being purged from our culture at an
ever-accelerating pace.
Christmas parades have been replaced by Winterfests.
Schools frown on Christmas decorations. Cities and
towns have rechristened the municipal Christmas tree
a “community tree.” You’d have an easier time
setting up a nativity scene in Saudi Arabia than in
most public parks. And sales clerks wish us a “Happy
Holiday!” -- as if we all celebrated something
called “holiday.”
Bill O’Reilly, host of The O’Reilly Factor, charges
“There is an anti-Christian bias in this country,
and it is more on display at Christmas season than
any other time.”
Says Bill Donahue, president of the Catholic League
For Religious And Civil Rights, “This is only the
beginning of the Christmas season and already the
anti-Christmas crusade is in high gear.”
Overdrive would be more like it.
To begin with, there are the stores that avoid the
dreaded C-word in their advertising, and won’t allow
their sales personnel to wish shoppers a Merry –
well, you know. The latter include Target (which,
with an extra measure of bad cheer, has also
banished Salvation Army kettles from its premises),
Costco, BJ’s, Wal-Mart, Sears/K-Mart and Kohl’s.
When a Wal-Mart shopper complained, someone in its
Customer Service department sent her the following
demented e-mail:
“The majority of the world still has practices other
than ‘christmas’ (sic.) which is an ancient
tradition that has its roots in Siberian shamanism
….”
Say what? O’ Little Town of Irkutsk?
The author of “A Child’s Christmas at The Home of
Shirley MacLaine” continued: “The colors associated
with ‘christmas,’ (sic.) red and white, are actually
a representation of the amanita mascara mushroom.
Santa is also borrowed from the Caucuses, mistletoe
from the Celts, yule log from the Goths, the time
from the Visigoths and the tree from the worship of
Baal.” And the partridge from the pear tree?
After the Catholic League inquired if it was store
policy to intentionally denigrate Christianity in
this way, the customer service clown reportedly was
fired. (He should have been sent to the frozen
tundra, for further research on Siberian shamanism.)
At the Lowe’s store in Austin, Texas, a banner
announces “Now Here! Fresh Cut Holiday Trees,” with
the same in Spanish. “O Holiday Tree, O Holiday
Tree. How PC Are Thy Branches.”
Then there are all of the public institutions that
are bah-humbugging it up during this joyous season.
• Boston Mayor Thomas Menino and the city’s
parks’ commissioner decided that starting this
year, they would refer to Boston’s Christmas
tree as a “Holiday tree.” After the donor in
Nova Scotia threatened to repossess the tree and
run it through a chipper, the city abandoned
that dumb idea.
• Last year, the mayor of nearby Somerville,
Mass. publicly apologized after a press release
misidentified the municipality’s holiday party
as a “Christmas party.”
• Also in 2004, the town council of Kensington,
MD. voted to end its 33-year tradition of having
Santa Claus at their annual tree lighting. All
because two families said the presence of the
jolly old elf would make them (oh no!)
“uncomfortable” – in another triumph for
sensitivity tyranny.
• Lest you think the foregoing is a blue-state
phenomenon, a Kansas newspaper ran a correction
for referring to the “Community Tree” at
Wichita’s Winterfest as a Christmas tree. How
long before Menorahs become "Community
Candelabra?"
• Denver rejected a Christian-themed float in
the city’s “holiday parade” (which violated its
rule against “direct religious themes” –
wouldn’t want to connect religion to “the
season”) while welcoming German folk dancers,
Chinese lion dancers and gay Native Americans.
Perhaps the local church which sought to
participate should have said its float was a
tribute to Siberian shamanism. Then, it probably
would have led the procession.
• Across the country, school districts have
ordered secular-themed only decorations, forbade
teachers from reading Christmas stories or
allowing the distribution of Christmas cards and
purged Christmas carols from their holiday
programs. Last year, the South Orange/Maplewood
New Jersey school district went a step further,
banning the playing of instrumental music like
“Silent Night” by school bands. Apparently, not
just words – but also melodies – are sins
against inclusiveness.
• In perhaps the unkindest cut of all, according
to WorldNetDaily.com, Christianity was notably
absent from the White House 2004 Christmas
celebration. The White House website proclaimed
the holiday the “Season of Song and Melody.” The
site noted the White House was decorated with
“delightful vignettes illustrating the
best-loved songs of the season,” among them “I
saw Mommy Kissing Santa Claus,” and “Frosty the
Snowman.” Not one was a hymn or a traditional
Christmas carol.
• At the lighting of the National Christmas Tree
(yes, it’s still that, and not a “holiday tree”
or “community tree,” as yet), the president
recently reelected with a groundswell of support
from evangelical Christians observed, “At
Christmas time, we celebrate good tidings, first
announced 2,000 years ago, and still a source of
great joy to our world.” And what would those
tiding be, Mr. President – gas prices down, the
administration’s approval ratings up? When the
president who once said Jesus was his “favorite
philosopher” can’t connect the birth of his
Savior to the holiday, you know Christmas is in
serious trouble.
And so it is. Each year, Christmas recedes further
from view. This notwithstanding that, according to a
recent Newsweek survey, 85% of this nation is
Christian. (On a percentage-of-population basis,
America is more Christian than Israel is Jewish --
more Christian than India is Hindu.)
A FOX News poll informs us that 96 % of the American
people celebrate Christmas – which means a lot of
non-Christians are decking the halls too. So the
above de-Santa-zation process is all for 4% of the
population?
Not even. Many who don’t celebrate Christmas have no
objection to Christmas trees, carols, mangers in
parks, Santas in parades or the lady at the cash
register saying “Merry Christmas.” I should know;
I’m one of them.
When I was in grade school, back in the ‘50s, we
sang Christmas carols and made Christmas ornaments.
And, guess what – I wasn’t emotionally scarred for
life.
What’s the big deal? I’m a Jew who lives in an
overwhelmingly Christian nation. (Are Christians who
live in Israel offended when someone wishes them a
Happy Hanukah?) Christmas has been celebrated on
these shores -- in one form or another -- since the
earliest settlements.
Christmas is part of the fabric of America – from
Washington’s first Christmas message to the
Continental Army (1776), to the famous 1897 New York
Sun editorial (“Yes, Virginia, there is a Santa
Claus”), to the 1947 classic “Miracle on 34th.
Street,” to the American troops who celebrated
Christmas in the Pacific and on the battlefields of
Europe during World War II, and latter in the
jungles of Vietnam .
Will Americans serving in Iraq have holiday trees,
sing “Frosty The Snowman,” or take part in the
rituals of Siberian Shamanism on Christmas eve? Will
they eagerly await seasonal presents from home, or
enjoy a holiday dinner on December 25th.
Ironically, American Christians stationed in a
Moslem country may feel more Christmas spirit than
the folks they’re guarding back home.
There’s a war over there, and a war over here. The
secularist assault on Christmas (unwittingly aided
by the perpetually aggrieved and
sensitivity-whipped) is one front in the war on
America’s Judeo-Christian heritage.
Other battle zones include Ten Commandments
monuments, God in the Pledge of Allegiance,
stigmatizing the Boy Scouts, advances of the culture
of death, and attempts to impose homosexual marriage
by judicial fiat (thus undoing the morality of both
Sinai and Bethlehem).
The militantly secularist Anti-Defamation League was
shocked by the results of a poll it recently
commissioned, indicating that 64% of Americans
believe “religion is under attack” in this nation.
(Among evangelical and charismatic Christians, that
figure is 80%.)
That’s because religion is under attack in America.
From now through December 25th, they’ll be
take-no-prisoner, hand-to-hand combat in school
corridors, public parks, parades and retail
establishments.
Incoming, Santa!
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