Every year, with the precision and regularity of an atomic clock, Fox News finds a way to invent controversy by imagining the impending doom of Christmas, which is supposedly being attacked on all sides by liberals, Jews, and atheists alike, who are militantly waging a war on Christmas. The evidence offered for the cultural demise of the United States’ most prolific holiday usually amounts to holiday catalogs emblazoned with sayings like “Season’s Greetings” or “Happy Holidays” or “Tis the Season.” Obviously, shout the scaremongers on Fox News, the fact that these catalogs—decorated with images of Christmas trees, Christmas lights, and Santa Claus—do not explicitly say “Merry Christmas” is evidence of a vast, left-wing conspiracy to destroy Christmas. I can only imagine impassioned and frightened Fox News viewers huddled in their suburban homes at night, hearing dastardly tales of a liberal siege on Christmas, fearfully gripping their shotguns on their paid Christmas vacations from work as the blinking Christmas lights of all their neighbors filter through their drapes and the sounds of Salvation Army bells rung by men in Santa suits reverberates through their homes. Tis the season to be delusionally paranoid—so much so that one would almost consider it plausible that a holiday celebrated by almost everyone, that even serves as an economic bedrock for most retail businesses, is going to end because a few brochures say “Happy Holidays”. One has to wonder that when the Christians were stealing the Christmas celebration from the pagans, did pagan news outlets of the time also sensationalize the death of Christmas, with portly, socially conservative pagans angrily carving shrill anti-Christian ramblings into stone tablets?

Well know about retailers who advertise “Christmas in July” sales to drum up extra revenue; well, I have my own Christmas in July corollary. Or at least Christmas in September. It’s the war on Christmas in July!  For those who don’t know about the war on Christmas, this Fox News report—detailing that Christmas is being sabotaged by secular humanists and atheists who advertise on buses—embodies the standard story.

Why the bus ad is being framed as an attack on Christmas is not adequately explained. The advertisement in question merely says, “Why believe in a god? Just be good for goodness’ sake.” At the bottom is a picture of a person wearing a Santa costume shrugging. Obviously, the purpose of the ad is to inform others that belief in God is not necessary for moral behavior. Santa and Christmas are only tangentially relevant, and are only included because the phrase “be good for goodness’ sake” is a riff off of a line from a popular Christmas carol.

Belief in God isn’t even necessary to celebrate Christmas, particularly because Christmas is becoming an increasingly secular holiday. The pagans understood the true, feel-good nature of Christmas, focusing on portly fat men and spritely elves and joyous gift-giving. Christianity, of course, tried to incorporate the pious, serious Jesus, but that hasn’t worked out as well, because Jesus makes people feel guilty, ashamed, and sad. The guy was beaten and crucified for our supposed sins, has never told a joke, and incessantly preaches. If he showed up at a cocktail party, his hands bloody, his body gaunt, preaching about fire and brimstone, he’d be a total buzz kill. This is why secular culture has largely uprooted Christmas from the Christianity that was haphazardly glued to the holiday in the first place. The Christians stole the holiday from the pagans, and now the secularists have stolen Christmas from the Christians. Christmas is about snow, lights, horridly bland television specials, forced internment with one’s family members, and rampant materialism. Jesus is, at best, a hazy afterthought—akin to the embarrassed recollection that one is married after waking up half drunk in another person’s bed. So you see, the “war” on Christmas, or at least the silly Jesus-fied version of it, has already been won. Religion hasn’t been the most important part of Christmas for a long, long time, and it’s time the conservatives stopped waging their little rebellion against our secular celebration of family, gift-giving, and charity.  Leave our godless, secular holiday alone!

This entry was posted on Tuesday, September 1st, 2009 at 9:29 PM and is filed under Blog, Politics, Religion. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.