Another god damned war without an exit strategy.
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I’m on the mailing list for the Okanagan Nation Alliance.
A few years back they sent out an email in December with the subject header “Season’s Greetings”.
But the attachment had a photo, some people in front of a banner saying “Xast Sputa”.
I had to look it up, and it means “Merry Christmas” in Salish.
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Yes I’m aware that certain sects don’t “celebrate” anything fun. I’ll take issue with you calling it “cultural exchange” a lot of it was more if we want these people to come to church we’re going to have appropriate some of their traditions. I think as far as the “war on christmas” metaphor goes we can say that it’s roots go way back.
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Fox News started it. They were having a slow news cycle…
" On December 3, 2004, Fox News’ now-defunct The O’Reilly Factor debuted a recurring segment called “Christmas Under Siege.” Though Christmas was not and has never been “under siege” in any meaningful way, disgraced former host Bill O’Reilly and Fox were set on pushing this victimization narrative, laying the groundwork for what became known as the “War on Christmas.” In the 15 years since, onlookers watched the very concept of objective reality fracture along political lines. Consumers of conservative media drifted ever deeper into a world where a school’s nonexistent ban on red and green clothing became national news and paranoid delusions were freely floated about a future in which people may be prohibited from displaying Christmas decorations."
It’'s now become a tradition celebrated every year around this time.
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Sez you.
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It’s at once fascinating, and also incredibly frustrating, when you consider just how effective this repetitive bullshit rage-stoking machine has been.
I wacky parsed that as “rage-stroking”. Clearly, I picked the wrong week to stop sniffing glue.
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Next week you’ll need helium. Ride the chrome.
I agree with your point.
I just disagree with the original comment that “the Religion that literally stole these holidays from other traditions”. While I partly agree with that statement, it is more complicated than that. Like many of the current traditions may be from Europe, but the timing of the holidays usually have roots in Roman holidays.
I do think that’s a pretty accurate statement, since those cultural practices are no longer around in the same way. For example, when we put a tree up in our house for the holiday, it is not with the same cultural intentions as people in Pre-Christian Europe did it. Just because we got through the same motions, doesn’t mean it’s the same thing, ya know?
I don’t know if that’s entirely true…
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The End of December is packed with Catholic holidays:
Mass on the 24th is celebrated “inter vesperas” in collegiate churches
Christmas is celebrated on the 25th.
Day 26 is the feast of St. Stephen the protomartyr
Day 27 is the feast of St. John, Apostle and Evangelist
Day 28 is the feast of the Holy Innocents
Day 31 is New Year’s Eve but is also St. Sylvester
On January 1st, the Circumcision of the Lord is celebrated.
Epiphany is celebrated on January 6
And before on 7 December St. Ambrose is celebrated.
On day 8, the Immaculate Conception is celebrated
So happy holidays is because from December 8 and January 6 there are a lot of holidays!
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I think that the real was on Christmas is done by retail chains, carbonate beverage makers, industrial breadcake makers, toy factories and the bigger evil all advertisers and marketeers.
Corporation that want you to waste your money in trash, for no reason than make you spend the money. People that want you to overeat with people you really don’t like and pretend that it’s funny.
Besides Santa Claus, is St. Nicholas from Myrna (Turkey) and no reindeers are present in Myrna, or even Bari or Venice.
Who is stealing Christmas?
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I am especially keen to take a day off to celebrate the Circumcision of the Lord, oh yes! /s
All us Grinches. (And proud of it. Bah! Humbug!)
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An early soldier in the war on Christmas was that notable communistic social justice warrier and virtue signaller Bing Crosby. In 1942, 60 years before all these poor victimized white evangelicals even realized the war had begun!
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Written by one of the most perfidious Elders of them all!
I really have to wonder how these “War on Christmas” arseholes deal with the fact that he also wrote this:
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“Lisa, I want to buy your rock.”
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Up on Black Friday and Down January 2nd here at the Den. We toyed with it being up until Easter one year, but we decided we liked the floor space more. The bunnies would prefer it be up all year.
So, Christmas creep has now overlapped both Thanksgiving and Halloween
I’m seeing that, too. Looks like Jack Skellington won, after all? In seriousness, IIRC, the Peanuts’ Christmas Special has a complaint about how early Christmas decorations are going up.
The retailers won this war a long time ago.
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We’d better come up with one soon before Christmas decides to fight back, lol.
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Easter eggs actually seem to have quite a bit of history, lots of things with egg/dove symbolism are made in Italy for Pasqua, and have traditions that go back at the very least several hundred years, and often more. Supposedly the traditions of exchanging eggs is older than Chrisitianity, but some of the first Mesopotamian xians used to mark eggs with red to signify the blood of christ.
That fits with songs like “We Wish You a Merry Christmas” (“bring us some figgy pudding… we won’t go until we get some”)
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