'Merry Christmas' needs no help
LAURA BILLINGS
Did you know that Christmas is under siege?
You might not have noticed it, what with that mall harpist plucking "Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas" every other minute. Or with all that primping you have to do before the annual office Christmas party. Or with those long lines at the post office, waiting to buy those darling "Madonna and Child" stamps for your outgoing Christmas cards.
It's a busy time of year, after all.
But according to such conservative commentators as Bill O'Reilly and groups like the so-called Committee to Save Merry Christmas, the anti-Christmas forces are trying to prevent us red- and green-blooded Americans from enjoying our God-given right to celebrate the humble birth of the baby Jesus in the two most sacred spaces in the American religious experience — shopping malls and public streets.
As for the shopping malls, the aforementioned committee is urging a boycott of Macy's and several other stores that it claims have prohibited the use of "Merry Christmas" in ads and displays. For its part, Macy's — a holy site for many Christmas pilgrims, and the site of the famed "Miracle on 34th Street" — says it uses the phrase regularly in ads and hasn't stopped shop clerks from saying it.
No matter, the Christmas complainers say on their Web site, www.savemerrychristmas. org, "The festive atmosphere of the past that surrounded the Christmas season in department stores which energized shoppers, supported their culture and tradition, and excited them to select just the right gift for friends and family for the Christmas celebration has been severely diminished. For many, the atmosphere has become offensive and devoid of any meaning."
It's interesting that people who celebrate Christmas — and a recent fair and balanced Fox News survey found that's about 96 percent of us — would feel the need to get "support" for our "culture and tradition" from a department store. But I suppose, in a country where only about 40 percent attend religious services weekly, shopping has to be elevated to a spiritual pursuit. If my previous forays to Macy's have been devoid of meaning, perhaps I was just shopping in the wrong departments.
As for signs of Christian persecution in the public square, Bill O'Reilly, Sean Hannity and cohorts have been toting up all the ways "secular progressives" (code for liberals, Jews and other people of faith who turn to their clergy for good sermons instead of voting guides) are trying to attack Christmas.<<<
http://www.twincities.com/mld/twincities/news/columnists/laura_billings/10444004.htm
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