Christmas concert banned, replaced by holiday concert! – “Happy Holidays” replacing “Merry Christmas”! – Christmas Trees not allowed in school!
Stay tuned for more stories about the oppressed majority desperately clutching their peals throughout the holiday season.
People will certainly get themselves tied up in knots over the strangest bullshite. Just ask Michael Coren from the Sun as he saunters through a frothy article about the “War on Christmas” and the evil wrought by secular forces. Bonus points if you caught the implied sneer when he compares secular people with the OWS movement.
Shitty opinion pieces aside, the fact remains that Christmas as a holiday (season) is not going anywhere soon. The Christmas season is entirely too profitable for business and by this base fact alone we will not have to worry about Christmas going the way of the dodo. Jebus needs a new blu-ray player….ohhhh yaaa! *sigh*
Rapacious consumerism is the sturdy superstructure of Christmas, the foundations are all but unshakable – all that is left to do is bloviate about which thin trappings we stretch over the capitalist orgy that defines the season. Happy Holidays? – Watch out! Holiday Tree? – Satan himself.
Does it matter? Not one bit.
Where it does matter a bit is in the public school system. In theory we have a secular school system and therefore we should not privilege any one set of magical beliefs over the other. In context of the school system it does make sense to have a Holiday Tree and to have a Holiday Concert as not every child is of the delusional christian variety. We should respect the brainwashing of other crappy mythology just as much as the flaccid christian ballyhoo and not push our beliefs unnecessarily on others.
bleatmop
Mystro
The Arbourist
Dead Wild Roses 
1 comment
December 10, 2011 at 5:30 pm
Reneta Scian
That is the creepiest Santa I have ever seen in my entire life. As for Christmas itself, I am not against it; however, this season is hardest on those with fewer family ties, and with less money. I know people for whom all the holidays bring them is a guilt trip about what they can’t do and buy for those they love, as if material things validate your love. It’s a vicious cycle. Since I was a young child, I watched “Good Christians” use Christmas as a “Keeping up with the Jone’s” contest, so perhaps I am a little be negativistic about the season. Since myself and my brother weren’t blood relatives, we were always last on their shopping list picking up little more than the left overs.
It’s a season of greed, consumerism, and materialistic banter wrapped up in the guise of love and happiness for so many. One thing Christmas taught me was that if your an outsider you are less worthy some how. Outsiders are adopted children, poor people, minority ethnicities, the homeless, gays, lesbians, bisexual, or transgendered, or any other minority you can think of. Christmas is for those privileged enough to have the “American Christmas”, and a bleak hope for all the rest. Christmas has little to do with religion and more to do with cultural programming.
Man, think of the racket you could have if you could invent a holiday simply so people would buy lots of stuff from you. To create a culture were people felt emotionally and fiscally obligated to spend lots of money for your imaginary holiday?
You’d be a millionaire. Religion is the only ticket that seems to enjoy a free ride in our culture. It’s almost enough for a person to follow in the spirit of L. Ron Hubbard and just make up your own religion, eh? In all seriousness though, I don’t know what I am supposed to do with Christmas. I used to be in a position to be exceedingly generous, and I was for years, spending literally thousands of dollars on gifts. I rarely ever saw such in return, sometimes I got little more than a card, and I was always happy with what I got, always expecting little in return. All I have to say is that it burnt me out, and when the economy made it even harder it drove the stake in the coffin.
The cost of living became so ridiculous that I was lucky to have 200 to spend on the season, close to zero now. It’s become a privilege of the wealthy, and a benefit to them as well more than anyone else. The poor and middle-class can’t afford to spend on it, but out of some guilt ridden expectation spend money anyways. Not to sound like the Grinch, but I feel that the holidays leaves a bad taste in my mouth. I feel I have good reason to feel that way, especially looking at the nature of that culture from the outside. SO, why should any one religion in a nation of religious freedom be given so much for nothing, so much leeway? Easy answer… It shouldn’t.
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