Dispatch from the Front Lines of America's War on Christmas

[cosmik debris]

Dear Soldiers for the Baby Jesus:

Once again, pagan combatants, wielding verbal grenades made of non-specific cheer, are on a militant rampage to retake the Winter Solstice, a holiday invaded and occupied by Christians over 1,700 years ago.

Friends, we stole December fair and square -- and are going to stay the coarse ones in turning a season devoted to love and joy into an vitriolic turf war all about us!

The first shopping skirmish of the season occurred when my Personal Shopper spotted secular insurgents maraudering behind the Estee Lauder counter. I personally overheard several of these "Happy Holidays" extremists, uniformed in the Lauder infantry's blue, paramilitary smocks, boldly declare a jihad on the Baby Jesus' birthday. As I feigned interest in an egregiously harloty shade of bright red lipstick, I overheard the make-up militia chant such bellicose, Christmas-hating greetings as "Have a wonderful holiday!" to civilian shoppers. They also brandished IEDs (introductory exfoliating devices) to Christian foundation buyers, Bible-believing bargain hunters simply looking for a Christmas gift that came free with a $35 purchase.
http://www.bettybowers.com/nl_christmas2006.html

[xchrom]

1. praise jesus for betty bowers!

[China_cat]

2. I have actually had a so-called christian

tell me "we stole christmas fair and square and the pagans can't have it back".

[cosmik debris]

3. But didn't the Jews steal it first?

I think that Chanukah pre-dates Christmas. So does the reason for the season belong to the original owners, the intermediate owners, or the most recent thieves? I'm confused.

[China_cat]

4. I used to make that particular fundy's head do 360's

by reminding him that Jesus was a Jew. He just couldn't handle it. He insisted that even the OT characters were christian and if you read the bible right you'd see it. (A real whack job...and a scary one)

[TRYPHO]

5. oy - don't you mean they were the original owners?

And anyway, Chanukah is a very new festival (from sometime after 165BCE) as far as Judaism is concerned, compared with others. Purim is a lot older, and that really was stolen from what I read - its a completely fabricated story based on events that happened to non-Jews in Mesopotamia. Anyway, there's nothing so flattering as imitation, apparently.

There used to be a lot more festivals besides Purim and Chanukah (Pesach is not a Festival as such) but life became so miserable after the 2nd temple that the people just couldn't find the joy, so the Rabbi's knocked the rest on the head, so to speak.

As for Jesus being a Jew, I think you need to qualify that with an "if he lived", but I would say that Jews of that period certainly celebrated many other festivals beside Chanukah, but Chanukah itself would have been on his list of Rabbinically ordered celebrations.

TRYPHO

[Meshuga]

6. Chanukah and Purim

Yeah, I think even Purim was stolen from an old pagan story. But Purim and Chanukah are not even that religious of holidays and are very minor holidays. Purim is not religious at all. There is no God in the story of Esther and the only religious part of chanukah are the candles to celebrate the myth of the chanukah miracle. The chanukah miracle story was added to give it more of a religious tone since we are not supposed to celebrate on the account of other people's demise. You know, the maccabees won the battle and Judaism survived.

The chanukah miracle is our Santa Claus.

The chanukah holiday was established in the Talmud so the celebration probably started from sometime after 200 CE.

Chanukah and Purim are very minor holidays and chanukah probably has more recognition because it's close to Christmas. Nowadays it tries to steal the thunder from Christmas. :-)

So christians stole it from the pagans and now we Jews are stealing it from the Christian. We might return it to the pagans just to annoy the fundies.

Happy Festivus!

[cosmik debris]

7. Live and learn

When I wrote my post I typed "I know Chanukah is ..."

Then I realized that I don't know squat about Chanukah so I changed the wording to "I think Chanukah is..."

Thanks for the correction but it really doesn't matter in the USA. We strongly hold to the legal theory that the last thief is the legitimate owner. Just ask any of our Native Americans.

[Danger Mouse]

8. Prepare for war!!!

Fire the first shot! Don't even wait for those blasphemous heathens to say 'Happy Holidays' to you, just randomly scream "MERRY CHRISTMAS, SINNER!" at people, just in case they were thinking of wishing you a happy holiday. Arm yourself with Jack T. Chick tracts...use them as throwing weapons. A bombardment of projectile tracts may convert someone.
Wow. I just had a great idea for a video game.