mario December 20th, 2007

Roland S. Martin from CNN just posted this little commentary about how there’s a “push to remove Christ from the Christmas season”. I’m sorry, but is that actually true? I’ve never once been chastised for saying “Merry Christmas” instead of “Happy Holidays”. I’ve never heard anyone refer to a Christmas tree as a “holiday tree”. And which Christ-mentioning songs have been “axed”, and in what capacity? He’s not backing up any of his statements, he’s simply putting assertions out there and assumes that the reader buys into them.

Well I don’t!

The only situation where I could agree with him would be in the realm of marketing, but there’s a damn good reason for it. When a company is selling a product in the month of December, they’re potentially selling to people who observe other holidays as well as Christmas celebrators. Though he claims to be respectful of other religions, he’s basically saying that this time of year is about Christmas and Christmas alone (screw Hanukkah, Kwanzaa and the Solstice). Do you think that maybe a gift being sold on Amazon or eBay that doesn’t contain some element of a Santa hat could be sold to someone that intends to give it to someone else on a day other than December 25th?

Because December contains so many prominent holidays, there’s nothing wrong with wishing someone “Happy Holidays”, because you very well might not know what the recipient of the well-wishing celebrates. That said, I’ll say “Merry Christmas” to anyone regardless, and I fully welcome them to return a “Happy Hanukkah”, “Habari Gani?” or whatever else they deem appropriate to the occasion. “Right back atcha!” or “Aaay!” would probably be okay too. But I’ve never felt any semblance of societal pressure to withhold my personal religious beliefs, so I’m really having a lot of trouble seeing where Mr. Martin is coming from on this one.

Also, what’s wrong with giving gifts? It’s not like I’m just hemorrhaging my hard-earned money for people I don’t even like. ‘m just hemorrhaging my hard-earned money for people I do like, because I think they’re awesome people that deserve it. I haven’t lost sight of what the holiday means to me, and I don’t feel any pressure to open my wallet any more than I’m comfortable doing; if I were broke, I’m sure my family and friends would understand receiving tacos on Christmas morning. I mean, tacos are delicious, after all.

You want something to complain about regarding Christmas? TBS has announced that they’ll once again be playing A Christmas Story for 24 hours straight, just a few days from now. That right there is an affront to the sanctity of the holiday. I love that film, but how many times in the same day can you watch Flick stretching his tongue in a vain attempt to excise it from the frozen pole? Apparently the answer is 12 times.

But I’m genuinely curious: anyone here bear witness to a war on Christmas lately?

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