I Guess This Makes Me Anti-Christmas

I generally avoid Fox News and Bill O'Reilly because I really like having an entire head of hear versus one that has had eat strand ripped out in fits of rage. But this WAR ON CHRISTMAS nonsense needs to stop. Because it has leaked out into mainstream media, because this bullshit needs to STOP NOW.

I do not understand what crawled up the asses of some people about Christmas this year. Because they are not protesting the removal of religious items from stores or public venues--the are angry because retailers are using Happy Holiday signage instead of Merry Christmas, because communities are calling their trees Holiday Trees. They are protesting the non-denominational expressions of commercial aspects of Christmas as being anti-Christian.

WHAT THE FUCK?!

Let me explain something to people.

Stores are using Happy Holidays because there are, in fact, several holidays during this season being celebrate and like good capitalists they want to make all of their customers feel welcome while they spend their money. This is not a wave of PC nonsense this is good business and O'Reilly should know this, in fact I suspect he does know this.

Communities are trying to keep religion out of their holiday displays because well the entire community is not Christian. Now I know that this simply STUNS many people in this country. Just makes them gasp with horror because how could this have happened as our forefathers fought for a Christian nation? Except they totally didn't. Most of them were not Christian. And a big sector of this country isn't either. O'Reilly has been floating this stat that 90% of Americans celebrate Christmas so he doesn't want to hear the diversity argument but well that is simple of him isn't it? Because there are a lot of people of different religions that celebrate the secular holiday of Christmas. And there are people who are inter-married. And there are those of us who don't celebrate it at home because we are big Jews but we celebrate it with our mothers because really who wants to make their mama cry because she cannot do a stocking for them? NO ONE.

The thing that makes me most crazy about this whole scenerio is that people are losing sight of what is really wrong with having Christmas programs in public schools or asking every child you see about their visit with Santa. Imagine how exclusionary that is for a kid who doesn't celebrate it. Imagine how hard it is to be different. Not because they or their family did anything wrong but because they believe something different. And because people are too caught up in their own shit about wanting to see little Timmy be in the nativity scene at school instead of church where it fucking belongs to think about how crappy that it. How WRONG it is.

I remember growing up I had this Jewish friend and every year before Winter Break teachers would have us do sing-alongs or something equally stupid (yay for public schools) and I would always ask if there were Hanukkah songs we could sing. This was a well intentioned question--even if I now know that I was a goddamn tool--but I missed the point. How depressing for that guy to have to sit through this shit every year. To be a freak. To miss out on it. And to have people get all in his business about why his family didn't celebrate (NOT EVEN A TREE?!).

I am not Christian anymore. But I do recall that some of the ethics of the religion involved kindness to others. Wishing peace and love to everyone. And screaming into the TV about how the Jews and the Muslims and Buddhists and the atheists and everyone else should shut the hell up because it is Merry FUCKING Christmas people and don't you forget it is not bringing Peace on Earth. It seems to me that this portion of the Christian community has lost sight of what is important (though in no way do I think they are the majority).

Since y'all are celebrating the birth of your savior and all, how about you be nice to the world for the rest of the month.

Just give it a shot.