The Twelve Ranters Of Christmas, Or The War On Christmas That Isn't

On The Twelfth Rant Of Christmas My Pastor Sent to me ...

Twelve Bill O'Reillys

Eleven Bryan Fischers

Ten Sean Hannitys

Nine Tony Perkins

Eight Harry Jacksons

Seven Rick Santorums

Six Cindy Jacobs

FIVE HUCK... A... BEEEEES

Four Pat Robertsons

Three Chuck Norrises

Two Rick Perrys

And ...a ...Limbaugh ...with.... Oxy... con... tiiiin

       "These secularists have no clue what it is. They are threatened by it. They can't leave well-enough alone, because it is other people's faith in God that scares them to death. I, for one -- and I hope you're one, too -- refuse to let these people succeed year after year, wearing away the joy and the wonder and the true meaning of this time of year and this marvelous holiday."

 - Rush Limbaugh

The annual "War on Christmas" is ...fizzling. Not because of vicious attacks from the "Secular Left", but from apathy within its own troops. To be sure, the "naughty" list (retailers who say "Happy Holidays") is still put out by the American Family Association, but some of it most stalwart supporters are, well, a bit tired: 

Bill O'Reilly: 

       "Every year I have to deal with assaults against Christmas That does not make me happy. I don’t want to do this. But I, personally? I’m fed up. The people who want to diminish the Christmas federal holiday are insulting me. And they’re insulting you, if you’re a Christian and believe in traditional America."

And the fatigue has given way to more skewed reason, more outlandish attempts to paint everyone, from Obama to poster-child retailer Chic-Fil-A as entities who want to destroy all that is Christmas. For example, Buster Wilson of the American Family Association insists that America's courts are condemning Christmas:

       "I don’t understand, ‘you’re not the majority anymore, this is not a Christian nation and you’ve guys have got to quit trying to cram everything down people’s throats,’ nobody’s trying to cram—look, it is the folks who don’t want us celebrating Christmas that are cramming that view down our throats and using the courts to do it."

The extreme sentiment is now that somehow Christmas is looked upon by non-"Christians" as ...evil:

Mike Huckabee:

        ".... I do believe that there are people who would be very happy if we never, ever said the word Christmas again."

Pat Robertson has become more placid in stating that atheists simply want to "steal" Christmas because they aren't happy and they don't want anyone else to be happy. (see below).

The Devil Is In The Desperation

Unable to separate "Happy Holidays" from its mass appeal, the people at FOX News and the whole of the Christian Right (or so it seems), has created a kind of pathetic hysteria (Gretchen Carlson of FOX asked a guest "Are we crazy for thinking there's a war on Christmas?") - a hysteria which people which the American public is finding to be, well, silly (see below). Even a "Muslim Obama will do away with Christmas" has fallen on deaf ears, and people are scoffing at Chick-fil-A's lack of "Christmas" in its advertising as any kind of apostasy. 

The Real Kabosh

Possibly the ultimate squelch to FOX's War On Christmas spirit was placed by Father Jonathan Morris on, of all places, FOX News:

       "If our Christmas is going to be all about getting upset at people trying to take away Christmas, isn’t that silly too?"

Of course it is, but naming any kind of Christian Right stance "silly" may be silly as well: the CR takes itself all too seriously and Father Morris's days as a commentator on FOX may be numbered.    Never take away The Christian Right's right to be persecuted. 

And Christmas is the perfect time to focus on persecution.

It's a wonder that the Right's media and talking heads haven't mentioned the latest attack in the War on Christmas: the Dalai Lama's proposal of a "Religionless Religion"

Transcending Christmas, Pt. 2: Who Owns Christmas - Rick Perry, Tony Perkins or... FOX News?

Christmas trees have become big news

 this season if only because the 

"war on Christmas is heating up.

And FOX News is leading the charge.

Because, only FOX News can determine who should celebrate Christmas. That's right. FOX News OWNS Christmas. Or at least it thinks it does. For example: the controversy about Rhode Island's Capitol "Holiday Tree" was kept alive recently by FOX attack reporter, Jesse Waters. Waters accosted Gov. Lincoln Chafee, asking him why the tree was called a "Holiday Tree" instead of a Christmas tree. Chafee was not quite as ruffled as Waters wanted him to be when he sited the state's religious dissident founder by saying:

“We’re trying to uphold the values of Roger Williams and make sure that the purity of theology is kept free from the pollution of government.”

Needless to say, Waters didn't get it and kept hounding the governor, asking "What holiday are you celebrating?" 

FOX also owns Christmas with egregious books like The War on Christmas: How the Liberal Plot to Ban the Sacred Christian Holiday Is Worse Than You Thought by John Gibson. (Gibson is the host of FOX's "The Big Story.")

Simply put, by featuring the "war" on Christmas so frequently and consistently, FOX wants to show us who REALLY owns Christmas.

SOLE PROPRIETOR?

Of course, plenty of other entities claim ownership of Christmas, not the least of which is the Family Research Council of the (now ubiquitous) conservative political convention, the Values Voters Summit. As we all know, the grand high exalted mystic ruler of the FRC, Tony Perkins, wastes no time in his views on who owns Christmas. It not only belongs to people who tell you where it should be celebrated, but to people who bloviate on where it shouldn't be celebrated:

Imagine celebrating the holidays at a graveyard--or the sight of a mass execution. That's what the Harris County Democratic Party's doing by holding their Christmas party at an abortion clinic. And not just any clinic, but Planned Parenthood's Houston mega-center. When reporters broke the news, the city's liberal mayor, Annise Parker, tried to defend the idea by saying, "It's not about the building; it's about people's lives." She's absolutely right. This is about lives--specifically, the millions taken in abortion clinics like this one! Even moderates like Andrew Breitbart said, "One doesn't have to be a dedicated pro-life activist to find the idea of this event kind of sick." After all, Christmas is a celebration of birth-not death. We rejoice in the baby who came so that we might have life-and life more abundantly.*

Last year, we wrote an article on Tony Perkins' "Christmas Card" to donors/followers of the FRC (Stranger Than Fiction: Tony Perkins' Christmas Card") in which he politicizes Christmas, albeit over-texted with Scripture. No doubt about it: TonyPerkins and the FRC have a serious stake in Christmas.


Rick Perry Is Not "Strong", But He Owns Christmas Too


Rick Perry's ad "Strong" earned him a record-breaking 665,000 "dislikes" on YouTube not only because he  slammed gays in the military and the absence of prayer in public schools, but he stated that kids "can't celebrate Christmas" in schools.** The ad instantly gave way to a dozen parodies (see the most stinging one below - "I'm not ashamed to admit that I'm an a**hole"). The bombastic attack on the Obama administration chose to hang on to Christmas as demonstration of ownership. 

So it seems that any "war" on Christmas, any inclusive attempts with "Holiday Trees" and "Happy Holidays", any celebration of Christmas in the "wrong" places declares the owners of Christmas to be the ones who insist on...control. We've noted that Christmas has, in effect, transcended itself, morphing into a universal Christmas Spirit. By controlling Christmas, these same people also attempt to control the Christmas Spirit. 


Perhaps the one person who realizes this manipulation is John Stewart of The Daily Show as the video below demonstrates. Stewart, of course, pokes fun at the whole ridiculousness of the "war", but in his comedy lies the truth: people may think they own Christmas, but the ownership of the Christmas Spirit? 


I don't think so. 

* Some rather sticky points against Perkins' rhetoric: some people actually do celebrate part of their Christmas placing wreaths or "blankets" of evergreens on loved ones graves. Secondly, Andrew Breibart is not and never has been a "moderate."

** CBS News:"Based on checking the schoolhouse scene in Iowa and Texas and consulting an array of national experts, it's clear that school officials are not permitted to organize prayers or focus on a single religion in connection with Christmas, but kids may pray and also celebrate the holiday on their own," the site's article reads.

The Daily Show with Jon Stewart
Get More: Daily Show Full Episodes,Political Humor & Satire Blog,The Daily Show on Facebook

There Is NO War On Christmas! Jesus Told Me So!

Actually, He said:

"Huh? What War On Christmas?
Are Limbaugh And O'Reilly At It AGAIN?"

I decorated the Christmas tree tonight. Like a cartoon character, I got tangled in lights, needed a new power strip, and had to race to Walgreens to get more white lights. As with most American households, I wanted my Christmas tree to look perfect: it was not going to look as if it had swallowed all the colored lights first. I was organized and resourceful last year, so there were no real surprises when I opened all of the other Christmas Crud boxes. It had me feeling a little gypped, to tell you the truth. What's Christmas like without sifting through bad ornaments to look for good ones? Moreover, what's Christmas like without all of the beautiful, tacky, cheap, glitzy, poignant, crass decorations we've acquired through the years?

Christmas trees and their decorations can be the mirrors of our true selves: we prominently display the best ornaments in the front while we place the crappy ones (or, just not as beautiful) in the back. I remember one particular ornament that never made it to the front: a flat, brown teddy bear dressed as a nurse. And it was sticking its red tongue out. It took a change of partners for me to get rid of the strange thing. But that's the thing about Christmas - the sentiment is so strong that you never throw out even the worst, most threadbare, tarnished, half-broken ornaments. Why?

Because at Christmastime, even the battered and ugly ornaments seem to have souls.

Today I read another article about the "War On Christmas" instigated by the sacred cows of the Christian Right. Is saying "Merry Christmas" so important that today's right-wing talk show bloviators and pulpit pimps have taken to ostracizing those who say "Happy Holidays?" Over the years, the concept of Christmas has transcended the birthday celebration of a religious icon. Perhaps that's why the Christian Right is furious over the inclusion of everyone into the "season of giving": the ideology of "Peace On Earth, Good Will Towards Men" has overshadowed the babe in the manger and they feel slighted. After all, they are a self-righteously arrogant lot that keeps reminding us that they have cornered the market on goodness ("It's the Christian thing to do!").

And they certainly don't want other holidays to be mixed in with theirs! "Why, saying 'Happy Holidays' instead of 'Merry Christmas' is downright sacrilegious! It's positively un-American! Christmas is a Christians Only holiday! Exclusivity is our right!

But who knew that such an exclusive holiday would become a worldwide peacekeeper (if only for one day)? Who knew that one day out of the year would garner hosts of goodwill and, most important of all, compassion? Can't the Christian Right be a bit more generous with one of their core philosophies? Then again, they seem to be a people fixated with their own persecution: "War on Christmas" "War against Marriage" "War against the Unborn." But who's going to tell them that there is no "War" except for the one they themselves are waging against inclusion?

Are they the only ones who discard old, unwanted Christmas tree decorations?

Yes, there is a war: on inclusion, on open-mindedness, on universal acceptance. Today's family values include more people in the family than any Christian Right family reunion picnic. "Extended" families are just that: strongly bonded extensions of the core, whatever that core may be. And today's Christmas recognizes the love between individuals more than ever before. That, of course, makes the Christian Right seethe in rage. To them, the meaning of Christmas is only about their ideals and the way they want to see those ideals performed.

So if The Christian Right is involved in a war, the only war it is fighting is the "War on Universal Love."

Thanks for reading.

Dan Vojir

PS:
For all my friends and readers I have a small, homemade Holiday gift created with the help of my late love of gardening. It's a series of photos I pasted together for several of Tchaikovsky's Nutcracker melodies. The last one is performed for you by the San Francisco Faerie Portal. It depicts how the faeries magically celebrate Christmas Eve.

All the flowers of our home
and the faeries of the portal wish you all
the Happiest of Holidays!