Posted on 12/26/2004 12:23:29 PM PST by RWR8189
A few Decembers back, I was in Santa Claus, Ind., and went to the post office -- a popular destination thanks to its seasonal postmark.
''Merry Christmas!'' I said provocatively.
But Postmistress Sandy Colyon was ready for me. ''A week ago,'' she said, ''I'd have had to say 'Happy Holidays,' but we've been given a special dispensation from the postmaster-general allowing us to say 'Merry Christmas.' So Merry Christmas!''
That's ''Christmas'' at the dawn of the third millennium -- a word you have to get a special memo from the head office authorizing the use thereof. There was more hoo-ha than usual this ''holiday season'' about the war to expunge the C-word from American vocabularies, and, now that we can stick the bland nullity of ''Happy Holidays!'' away in the closet until the start of Ramadan 2005, it's worth considering who are the real winners and losers in this struggle.
Yes, the competition for the ACLU's silliest Santa suit seemed particularly fierce this year. In one New Jersey school district, the annual trip to see Dickens' ''A Christmas Carol'' was canceled after threats of legal action. At another New Jersey school, the policy on not singing any songs mentioning God, Christ, angels, etc., was expanded to prohibit instrumental performances of music that would mention God if any singers were around to sing the words. So you can't do ''Silent Night'' as a piano solo or Handel's Messiah even if you junk the hallelujahs.
This is nothing to do with Christianity. ''A Christmas Carol'' is a secular work -- there's no more God or Jesus in it than there is in ''White Christmas.'' And, if works of music that reference God are banned from schools, that cuts out a big chunk of the aural glories of this world, including the best of Bach and Mozart. Forbidding children from being exposed to Handel and Dickens is an act of vandalism and, in the end, will eliminate any rationale for a public education system.
But let's not obsess on New Jersey's litigious secularists. In Plano, Texas, in the heart of God-fearin' Bush country, parents were instructed not to bring red and green plates and napkins for the school's ''winter'' parties, as red and green are colors with strong Christmas connotations and thus culturally oppressive.
Jesus, Mary and Joseph long ago got the heave-ho from the schoolhouse, but the great secular trinity of Santa, Rudolph and Frosty aren't faring much better. ''Frosty The Snowman'' and ''Jingle Bells'' are offensive to those of a non-Frosty or non-jingly persuasion: They're code for traditional notions of Christmas. The basic rule of thumb is: Anything you enjoy singing will probably get you sued.
Philip Roth famously observed that, with ''Easter Parade'' and ''White Christmas,'' Irving Berlin had taken the two holidays that celebrate the divinity of Christ and ''de-Christed'' them both, turning Easter ''into a fashion show and Christmas into a holiday about snow.'' But Berlin found an angle on Christmas that anyone can get into. The new school of ''de-Christers'' seems to deny the possibility of any common culture, so that the holiday concert winds up a celebration of hermetically sealed cultural ghettos. ''E pluribus unum -- from one, many,'' as Al Gore mangled it a couple of years back.
And yet this year I'm disinclined to join in the general bemoaning. Flipping the dial on my car radio, I noticed more stations than ever were playing nonstop 24-hour ''holiday music'' for the month before C-day -- not just ''Winter Wonderland'' and ''Jingle Bell Rock,'' but Bing and Frank doing ''Go Tell It On The Mountain'' and Andy Williams singing ''O Holy Night.'' And not just the old guys, but all the current fellows, especially the country singers: Garth Brooks' new album -- "The Magic Of Christmas" -- includes ''Let It Snow! Let It Snow! Let It Snow!'' but also ''Baby Jesus Is Born'' and ''O Little Town Of Bethlehem.''
The seasonally litigious rest their fanatical devotion to the de-Christification of Christmas on the separation of church and state. America's founders were certainly opposed to the ''establishment'' of religion, whose meaning is clear enough to any Englishman: The new republic did not want President George Washington serving simultaneously as supreme governor of the Church of America, as the queen today is simultaneously head of the Church of England, or the bishop of Virginia sitting in the U.S. Senate, as today the archbishop of York sits in the House of Lords. Two centuries on, these possibilities are so remote to Americans that the ''separation'' of church and state has dwindled down to threats of legal action over red and green party napkins.
But every time some sensitive flower pulls off a legal victory over the school board, who really wins? For the answer to that, look no further than last month's election results. Forty years of ACLU efforts to eliminate God from the public square have led to a resurgent, evangelical and politicized Christianity in America. By ''politicized,'' I don't mean that anyone who feels his kid should be allowed to sing ''Silent Night'' if he wants to is perforce a Republican, but only that year in, year out, it becomes harder for such folks to support a secular Democratic Party closely allied with the anti-Christmas militants. American liberals need to rethink their priorities: What's more important? Winning a victory over the New Jersey kindergarten teacher's holiday concert, or winning back Congress and the White House?
In Britain and Europe, by contrast, the formal and informal symbols of religious faith remained in place in national life and there were no local equivalent to America's militant litigants, and the result is the total collapse of Christianity: Across the continent, the churches are empty. In attempting to sue God out of public life, American liberals demonstrate yet again that they're great on tactics, lousy on long-term strategy.
Oh, well. 'Tis the season of goodwill to all men, so in that spirit let me wish the ACLU a Happy Boxing Day. Yes, I know. Dec. 26 is Boxing Day only in Britain, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, etc., not in Illinois. But I don't see why America's fetishization of multiculturalism shouldn't extend to white, English-speaking cultures. And at least you won't get sued for saying it.
Is not "Happy Holidays" the PC version of "Bah Humbug"?
Happy Boxing Day every one! No, its not what you think it means. Its about the spirit of giving, like putting cash into charity boxes. Alms-giving, in other words. Boxing Day should also be adopted as a holiday here in the United States not just in the Commonwealth.
I have noticed no objections from observant Jews and Jehova's Witnesses to Christmas displays, songs, and greetings.
This is about politics, not religion.
The ACLU wouldn't sue over boxing. I can't think of a liberal who would find charity objectionable. Just don't mention it has something to do with the "G" guy and no one will be the wiser. ;-)
Actually, all liberals object to private charities because the money never passes through government hands.
I had Christmas dinner with a lovely woman who is a native of Czechoslovakia and who grew up there under the Communist regime -- and even spent time in jail there when she was in college. She said that this is how it all started with the Communist takeover -- they removed every Czech custom that had anything to do with religion until all was gone.
Dechristianizing Christmas is a trap we should avoid at all costs.
Isn't the new, politically-corrected term for today "Kwanzaa." If anyone can tell me what exactly Kwanzaa signifies or what we should celebrate today (other than the clandestine Holy Family), please alert me.
Bump - I'll be back!
But if the government's not involved and its a private endeavor - where's the constitutional problem? Its a little extreme to look for a prohibitionist angle in charity, even if you are a secular separationist fanatic.
I don't know how they'd do it, but they'd come up with some whacko angle to force it into the courts.
A business associate of my husbands was lamenting that at their daughters school music program, the words to traditional Christmas carols had been changed to Santa lyrics. They left the program feeling "hurt", in their words.
I told hubby he should tell this man that if he and other parents at that school don't raise the biggest stink they can about it, they deserve whatever non-meaningful, Christian-devoid program they get.
No - Boxing Day has a respectable lineage in Britain and the Commonwealth. "The traditional celebration of Boxing Day included giving money and other gifts to charitable institutions, needy individuals, and people in service jobs." Typically, people give presents to postal workers or spend the day volunteering. It also coincides with St. Stephen's Day.
I always wondered what is the "box" in boxing day... Do you know?
I thought Boxing Day was the day you finally got to beat the hell out of all the jerks you forced yourself to be nice to on Christmas.
Wish I could say the same for my local "Christmas Music" station. They played the Andy Williams, Bing and Nat King Cole, allright, but I had to turn the stupid thing off for all the James Taylor. ARGHHH!
Church boxes - where you put in alms for the poor. To box in the vernacular, is to give - to provide charity. Hence the derivation of the term.
See my post #14. Despite the name, it does not have a pugilistic spirit. Since it follows Christmas - it illustrates nicely the other side of what it means to be Christian - it is blessed to give as well as to receive.
Thank you Mark Steyn! The libs really piss me off with these antics! If I didn't have to work I would home school and the hell with the public edukayshun system! The article knocked off my after-Christmas glow it made me so angry!
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