The War on Christmas

If you have completely read the header image of this blog, you have probably noticed that there is a "Lord" in it, which probably tipped you off (if you are someone who needed tipping off) that it was a quote from the Bible.

Secret's out (if you are someone who thought it was a secret): I am a Christian.  I'm pretty deep into it, have been for a long time.  It looks like there's no hope for my rehabilitation.  The heavenly Doctor has given me only an eternity left to live.  In lieu of flowers, please send food because I haven't gone grocery shopping in a while.

All joking aside, I am a Christian.  Through and through, I believe in Jesus, I go to Church on Sundays, I pray as daily as I can manage, I read my Bible as daily as I can remember, and I study that Bible and my God in a community with other Christians.  I take my faith seriously, and while I struggle, I do try to put my love and worship of God before all else in my life.

Which is why I really hate the wars that people--predominantly Americans, I believe--declare on various "Christian" things.  Recently, it has been marriage, but I that's a whole post in and of itself.  A more timely war, though, is The War on Christmas.  This comes around every year at this time, and I am so sick of it.

I guess I should clarify: specifically, I'm sick of people saying it's a thing.

There are some tangentially-religious topics that the conservative media addresses that should be responded to with care, diplomacy, gentle words, and loving language.  But I don't believe this is one of them.

From what I can tell, this particular breed of warmongers fear the "politically correct" army is soiling the holid--I'm sorry, the Christmas Season by using the word "Holiday" instead of the word "Christmas."

There have probably been lawsuits against public displays of affection for Christmas.  I think I've heard of people suing to have outdoor nativities removed from courthouses and a quick google search turns up some other weird stuff about banners that said Merry Christmas and discussions pro and against the ACLU.  It is unfortunate to me that Christmas, which has already become a time to celebrate capitalism and materialism, has also become the battle ground for free speech.  But to a larger degree, the backlash against and the use of these lawsuits as proof that there is a war on Christmas (and therefore Christianity) is what really troubles me.

Ostensibly, the United States is a Christian country.  A non-Christian has never been elected president, we swear oaths of office and honesty on the Bible, and people like to pretend that the founding fathers were God-fearing Christians themselves.  But, in actuality, we are not a Christian country.  Our country has morals and as a society we have a somewhat stable belief system, but we are hardly Christian on the whole, and I don't see that as a bad thing.  We are made up almost entirely of immigrants who came here from hundreds of countries and many different religions, and it just makes sense that, even if our country started as a Christian nation (it didn't), is hasn't remained one and it can't try to become one again.

In actuality, Christmas is Christian (obligatory "CHRISTmas" comment).  Christmas is the celebration of the birth of Jesus, whom Christians believe to have been the incarnation of God who eventually grew up to die for their sins, thus making humans' reunion with God possible.  Ostensibly, around the country, Christmas is more than that now.  It, like the United States itself, has taken dozens of different cultures from around the globe and mashed them into something that Americans can all celebrate if they want to.  The Christmas we get time off work for is based more on an amalgamation of Saint Nicholas's feast day and pagan celebrations of the winter solstice than it is on Christ.  It is a holiday where people travel to see their families, exchange gifts under a tree and in giant socks, eat honeyed ham, and watch It's a Wonderful Life.  If that family is Christian, they will likely also celebrate the birth of Christ, but if that family is not Christian (and even sometimes if they are) they will skip that part.

So doesn't it make sense that the not-actually-Christian State is a little loose with their actually-Christian-holiday terminology? People who get the time off work, who buy the gifts on sale, who put up the tree and lights and excessive lawn ornamentation aren't necessarily celebrating Christian Christmas, anymore than the people who buy the peeps and hide the eggs are celebrating Christian Easter.  So what does it matter to us if they don't want to call it Christmas?  Doesn't the term "holiday" fit it better, due to its ambiguity, its fluidity, and its ability to cover a lot of ground in a single word?

I guess my main beef with "the war on Christmas" propaganda is that I don't feel like wishing people "Happy holidays!" makes it harder for me to enjoy the holidays I personally celebrate (which are actually plural, including my birthday, Christmas, and New Year's Eve...).  I'd feel the same way if I owned a company that sent out holiday cards, put up banners, or threw parties and I'd feel the same way if I were a teacher who wanted to decorate her classroom in December.  Neither my company as a whole nor my classroom as a structure celebrates any holidays. No one is telling me how to celebrate them myself.  No one is telling me I can't talk to others about how I celebrate my December holidays.

I do not see how my freedom is impinged, and I do see how my use of the word "Holidays" fits the mold of the season better that "Christmas" for most people that I talk to.  It's not a matter of a war against that oh-so-terrible concept of political correctness.  It's a matter of accuracy and efficiency.  And you know who values efficiency?

And, seriously.  If you put yourself in a war against the Borg, I won't even wish you good luck.  Luck is irrelevant.

Happy Holidays!

Mary Margaret

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Human in the end

I have no internet at my apartment and I still have scads of unpacking and arranging to do, so naturally, I am watching a lot of television. I'm limited to the shows whose seasons I own on DVD--DVDs I stopped collecting after I got my Netflix account three years ago--so I'm currently on side B of disc 1 of the first season of The West Wing.

For those of you not familiar with the show, it's a fast-paced, über-witty, Aaron Sorkin extravaganza that follows the administration of a fictional Democratic POTUS whose term is supposed to appear to take place around the turn of this century, when the show was on the air, but doesn't interact with almost any specific, real-time events or people in the real world. It's incredibly well written and intelligent, and, if my Poli-Sci 101 grade is any indication, it's pretty educational. I've seen the first season probably a good three or four times more than any of the others, in part because my mom has this morbid fascination with the first seasons of shows, and in part because it was the only one I was able to swipe from my parents' house.

The episode that I just finished was called "Mr. Willis of Ohio." It's a fascinating episode for many reasons and it's one that I gladly rewatch every once in a while, but I was engaged this time by something I'm not sure Sorkin meant to call attention to. (I mean, I can't be sure; Sorkin has always struck me as a man who walks a thin line between being a god among writers and being an arrogant guy who would claim coincidence as art to keep from looking too mortal, so maybe he does plan everything people experience while watching his shows, or maybe he'd swear he does.)

There's a particularly dramatic scene in "Mr. Willis" where The President is explaining to his 19-year-old daughter that she is a huge security risk, especially since she is about to start college. President Bartlet is a passionate man who uses eloquent and, in this case, terrifying rhetoric to make people see his points, so instead of calmly illuminating the situation, he enacts quite the display.

The look on Zoe's face as her father is reaming her out for being a teenager when he has a country to run made me think, in a way I hadn't before, about celebrity and its costs. Zoe Bartlet never existed, but Barack Obama does have a wife and two daughters, and their family existed before his presidency. Before the campaigns, the fund raisers, the approval ratings, before the late nights, the death threats, the "friends" coming out of the woodwork, they were a family. But trying to imagine even that family's camping trips that involve hacky sacks instead of cell phones and late nights that result in nothing more than children being grounded for a week seems unrealistic to me.

I don't like politics, I don't like reality television, and I kind of thought North was a nice name and definitely thought it was a stupid topic of conversation, but I would be a dirty hypocrite if I said I didn't understand and even relate to their popularity. I'm an avid reader and amateur writer, I understand and enjoy drama. Every time I'm in the grocery store check out line, I do glance at the excitement there, if only just to look smugly down my nose.

My derision doesn't make the stars of these big stages any safer, any more common, any less of a spectacle. It doesn't give them any more opportunities to take control of their own lives. Even in my entertainment snobbery, I am still a stranger inexplicably involved in a stranger's life, and it is the existence of vast groups of so involved stangers that necessitates that conversation between a president and his daughter, and that leads to that look on Zoe Bartlet's face. A girl fearing for her life and the influence it has that she never asked for and that now she doesn't know what to do with.

Some people do work to get that influence, but it always comes with unforseen if not undeserved consequences.  What is the correct response, as a common person, to celebrity? Even when the phrase "they knew what they were getting into" applies, does it cover all the sins people in the public eye have to endure?

I was in London during the Royal Wedding two years ago. When asked to write my congratulations to the happy couple in chalk on the sidewalks outside Buckingham Palace, I wrote "Better you than me." Royalty, especially modern royalty, is the perfect example of celebrity without choice, and that little Prince George was a household name before the boy even had a name strikes me as sad and frightening. I can't put my finger on why, though.