It’s that time of year again. Tis the season when the Right Wing media launches its perennial crusade against the War on Christmas. And so, they have started their annual witch hunt, scouring the country for examples of liberal elites trying to put the X into Xmas.
The War on Christmas has not been a war of bullets and smart bombs; it has been a war of lawsuits and dumb words. Lawsuits over nativity scenes on government property. And dumb words like “Season’s Greetings,” and “Happy Holidays.” You know — all those namby-pamby, politically correct, gluten-free ways to wish people a Merry Christmas without actually saying the “C” word.
To the Right Wing crowd, these things are a direct assault on the Christian values of our Christian forefathers whose Christian work ethic built the greatest Christian nation on Earth. You get the picture? These guys are big on Christianity. Up to a point. That business about “turning the other cheek” kind of goes against their grain. They tend to be more the “Stand Your Ground” kind of Christians. The kind that would like to see prayer in the schools, along with teachers packing Glock 9mm pistols — with 30-shot clips.
They ask, “Why can’t Christmas be like it used to be — before all those card-carrying “pinkos” at the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) got involved. Why can’t we all just celebrate Christmas the way our Christian forefathers intended?”
Whoa, guys. You’d better think twice before sending that Christmas wish off to the North Pole. Let’s just dust off our old history books and take a look at how the War on Christmas began. Flip back a few wars. Back before the Civil War. Before the Revolutionary War. Go all the way back to the very beginning. Chapter one, page one. To Plymouth Rock, that sacred icon of religious freedom where the Pilgrims landed in 1620. That’s where you’ll find the opening salvo of the War on Christmas. The battle started with the Puritans. You know – those guys who gave witch hunting a bad name. It was the Puritans, those paragons of Christian virtue, who put the kybosh on Christmas. Big time.
To them, December 25th was just another 16-hour work day. Merchants and schools remained open. There were no Christmas church services. No nativity scenes. No Christmas trees. No holly. No ivy. No lords a leaping. No gift giving. Christmas was, in a word – “No.” The Grinch had nothing on these guys. From the very beginning, they didn’t like Christmas, or the reindeer it rode in on.
They considered it blasphemy because it had no basis in either scripture or history.The bible never said “Keep holy Jesus’ birthday.” And, besides, nobody actually knew when Jesus was born. Where was his birth certificate?
It turns out; December 25th had been chosen out of the blue. In the third century, a bunch of early church fathers chose that date as Christ’s birthday because it coincided with the pagan Roman winter solstice festival called Saturnalia. I guess they figured it might be easier to get pagans to convert as long as they could still get drunk at the annual Christmas party.
And finally, the Puritans felt the twelve-days of Christmas celebrations in merry old England had gotten a little too merry. Say what you will about the Puritans, they were not party animals. The Puritans didn’t just refrain from celebrating Christmas themselves. They made it illegal for everyone. In 1659, the Puritans actually passed a law against it. Google it. Christmas was illegal in Massachusetts for more than 20 years. If you put up a nativity scene in early New England, it wasn’t the ACLU you had to worry about. It was thy holier-than-thou neighbors who were likely to come after thee — with torches and pitchforks.
And it wasn’t just the Puritans. It was that whole patchwork quilt of Protestant religions that had fled persecution in Old England and sought refuge in the New England colonies. The Congregationalists, the Presbyterians, the Quakers, the Baptists, and the Methodists – they were all loyal foot soldiers in the Bah Humbug Brigade. In early New England, the Moral Majority wasn’t fighting to put Christ back into Christmas. They were fighting to extinguish any glimmer of Christmas from their “shining city on a hill.” And they succeeded for nearly 200 years.
It wasn’t until the early 1800’s that Christmas began to sneak back into New England. And it wasn’t church mice that were sneaking it in. It was book worms. As the reading public began to devour the holiday stories of popular authors, their appetite for Christmas grew.
In 1822, the poem “Twas the Night Before Christmas,” introduced people to Jolly Old Saint Nick and his flying circus. There was no keeping the lid on Christmas now. It could fly to your rooftop and sneak down your chimney. Your kids suddenly knew each of Santa’s reindeer – on a first name basis. With all those reindeer prancing and sugar plums dancing, the Christmas juggernaut began to snowball.
About the same time, Washington Irving wrote five charming stories describing Christmas celebrations in an English country manor. He included them in his book of short stories which just happened to include “The Legend of Sleepy Hollow.” And so, Christmas got carried out of the shadows on the coat tails of the Headless Horseman.
And in 1843, Charles Dickens put the frosting on the fruitcake. His blockbuster story about the transformation of Ebenezer Scrooge took the nation by storm. The entire first edition of “A Christmas Carol” sold out the first week. Dickens’ reading tours were standing-room-only. Once New Englanders got a taste of Christmas dinner with Tiny Tim and the Cratchit family, the Puritan’s goose was cooked. It took a while, but finally, in 1870, the U.S. Congress declared Christmas a national holiday.
So, the puritanical War on Christmas finally ended. You are now free to cover your front lawn with nativity scenes. You can play Perry Como Christmas Albums on your ghetto blaster till your neighbors go nuts. You can not only give Christmas gifts, you can re-gift them. And your old maid aunt can give your kids all the pairs of socks they never wanted.
So, to all the talking heads of the Right Wing media, I offer this holiday advice. Chill out. The real war on Christmas is over. It ended 150 years ago. But if you absolutely can’t resist preaching about how we should celebrate Christmas, don’t use a Pilgrim as your poster boy. Ebenezer Scrooge would be a better choice.
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I really enjoyed your article.