How the Jews and secularists did not steal Christmas

[oberliner]

Some leaders of the Christian Right have decided to make an issue of the secularization of Christmas. Objecting to the move by Macy's and some other retailers to wish their shoppers "Happy Holidays" or "Season's Greetings," instead of the traditional Merry Christmas, they accuse secularists in general, and, on some of the right-wing talk shows, Jews in particular, of undermining Christmas.

The assault has been led by Bill O'Reilly, the most popular cable newscaster, who told millions of viewers that there was a systematic assault on Christmas by secularists. When challenged by a Jewish caller who said he felt uncomfortable being subject to frequent attempts to convert him by Christians at his college, O'Reilly responded: "All right. Well, what I'm tellin' you is, I think you're takin' it too seriously. You have a predominantly Christian nation. You have a federal holiday based on the philosopher Jesus. And you don't wanna hear about it? Come on -- if you are really offended, you gotta go to Israel then.''

I told O'Reilly that my grandfather didn't come here from Russia to be in a "Christian country," but rather in a country that welcomes many different faith traditions and officially privileges none.

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/chronicle/archive/2006/12/17/EDGRMLJJEI1.DTL

[sandyd921]

1. O'Reilly + war on xmas = bullcrap

n/t

[jcrew2001]

2. xmas

I'm not jewish or christian, but I went to a predominately jewish college and have many jewish friends.

I would say that the Christians are being too sensitive. I think culture is regional and there are different ethnic groups and religion in the United States. But Christain groups feel the need to ignore the US Constitution and proselytize non-Christians.

Large retailers have to conduct national campaigns that are all inclusive.

If a Christian person is threatened by a retailers lack of "Christmas greetings", perhaps this shows their own personal weakness of faith.

[1monster]

3. The truth of the matter is that Christmas was a secular holiday first...

The churches in this country and in England too, ignored Christmas, and discouraged people from taking the day off work AND from going to church on Christmas Day.

In the early mid nineteenth century, people began celebrating Christmas as a time for merriment and gift-giving. The churches had nothing to do with celebrating Christmas until the holiday started getting very popular.

It was only then that Jesus became the "Reason for the Season" in the late nineteenth century.

It was a control issue and, of course, the churches wanted some of the largess that was spread about at Christmas time.

[Az]

4. Its very simple, winter celebrations have traditionally been the big ones

In agricutural cultures there is simply too much work to do the rest of the year. Winter is a much more flexible time to celebrate things. You have ample stores of food. You have ample time. And there is plenty of inspiration for getting together with those you love due to it being fricking freezing outside (at least preglobal warming).

Furthermore early Christian history was generally against the celebration of birthdays for any church members or figures (Jesus included). Easter has always been the primary observance of the Christian faith. Even as late as the 19th century the Protestants were dismissing Christmas as Papist plot.

The Puritans considered celebrating Christmas to be a sin and outlawed it in Boston in 1659. And after the Revolutionary war the US lost interest in Christmas for the most part due to associating it with English customs rather than religious customs.

Christmas has always squatted squarely on the fence regarding its nature. Secular or Sectarian. If Christmas was truly religious then the US could not legally recognise it. But because of its secular aspects it can be recognised.

[walldude]

5. Damn.... we were so close too...

Oh well, there's always next year!

[rebel with a cause]

6. as I said on an earlier blog on this same subject:

Just as a "war on terror" can not happen, neither can Christmas be stolen. Christmas can be commercialized, exploited, and even forgotten, but it cannot be stolen. A better term for what they are talking about is de-Christianized, but they would never use that term because then they would have to admit that the thing most guilty of de-Christianizing Christmas is the commercialization of it.

When I was a kid, merchants began putting Xmas on their signs to save space. There was an uproar then just like this one. The big song for this outcry was "Put Christ back into Xmas." Well, the stink they threw made the merchants change their signs, but guess what - Xmas is still used at times when space is limited. The big difference from what happened then and this new to-do over nothing, is that Xmas was a new thing. Happy Holidays and Season's Greetings have been used for years. I can remember people (including shop owners) using these greetings, not because of sensitivity to other religions but because these greetings covered both Christmas and New Years.

This is just another religious zealot use of the holiday to attack others.