Screw Political Correctness

It’s kind of hard to not think about December 25th right now. Cities and towns all across the nation have decorated their main streets. Shopkeepers windows are looking their festive best. And Black Friday has already started in some areas-in the middle of the night! Stores started stocking a few shelves way back in September with green and red, and silver and gold craft items. I get that. I do. If you want to make your own decorations, or crochet mittens and scarves for unappreciative relatives, you probably don’t want to start on December first. Frankly, not being too much into crafting anymore, those were easy to ignore.

But when garden departments around the country started transforming into magical fairylands of lights and bulbs, garlands and stockings, lawn ornaments and gift wrapping supplies…well before Halloween…there wasn’t much of a way to pretend I didn’t notice.

Yup. OctoNovemCember had surely arrived.

While it’s sad to see the three – well two holidays, and a sort of holiday, combined into one ginormous one, what makes me sadder still is what’s been done to Christmas.

Throughout history Christmas has been recognized as a Christian holiday. Centuries ago (as early as the 4th century), December 25th was established as the day to celebrate Christ’s birth. So it’s not like people haven’t known this for a little while.

Still, some in the latter twentieth century decided that it wasn’t fair to continue calling Christmas ‘Christmas.’ Nope, it infringed on the rights of those who didn’t believe in Christ, or religion, or whatever reason they chose to offer for being offended.

And so a movement was started to start saying things like winter break (instead of the Christmas vacation most of us looked forward to every year), Happy Holidays rather than Merry Christmas, holiday cards, holiday trees, holiday parades…

Worse still, it began to be okay to ban things like nativity scenes, and other public displays that included religious themes. I’m not saying that everyone started fussing about it, but there were many who did. And continue to do so.

Seriously?

If we can’t have Christmas without offending someone, what are we going to do about Hanukkah, Kwanzaa, Ramadan…and all of the other  religious and cultural holidays? Do away with them altogether? Maybe designate one day a year for everyone to celebrate whatever they wish to celebrate, and strike the rest from our calendars? (I can just see state and federal employees reactions to the end of most of their three and four day weekends!)

Discrimination is supposed to be frowned on in this country, and hopefully in every other country around the world.

The Christian part of this holiday has been largely ignored for decades in favor of the more commercial aspect of it. And to that I say fine. Whatever floats your boat. The decorations and gift-giving part of Christmas are a lot of fun. If it doesn’t move in my house, it’s probably going to get a string of lights or garland (couch potatoes beware!). And no one loves buying gifts more than I do. I’ll do without necessities, even stoop to eating hot dogs (yuck!) in order to buy just one more gift.

No one forces me to do that, anymore than someone else is forced to park themselves in a pew at church, watching little kids performing plays with a plastic baby Jesus, fake farm animals, crooked angel wings, and falling stars and stables.

The point is, whether we like it or not, Christmas is a religious holiday. Just because a portion of the population doesn’t like religion – or that religion  in particular – doesn’t change that fact. And I think everyone needs to wake up and see that if our government, schools, and the whole politically correct crowd can take something that doesn’t belong to them, basically steal it from the people it does belong to, and change it into something else entirely…something like Christmas…then they can do it with anything that they don’t like.

Maybe something you like.

Think about it. It doesn’t matter whether you’re Christian, Jewish, Muslim, agnostic, atheist, or anything else, something is important to you. Something that offends someone else. If Christmas can be diminished from a sacred celebration to secular holiday, then whatever it is that means something to you can be stolen from you, too. So before you start screaming foul, it’s your ‘right’ to not have a religious holiday shoved down your throat, remember why there is a Christmas in the first place. If you still choose to celebrate it, try showing a little of the tolerance you’d like given to you.

*****

^^^This person is celebrating Christmas^^^

I don’t know about anyone else, but I’m going to celebrate Christmas. I’m going to buy Christmas gifts. I’m going to put up Christmas decorations – including a Christmas tree. I’m going to send out Christmas cards. I’m going to play Christmas music. I’m going to make Christmas dinner, and go to my sister’s house on Christmas Eve. I’m going to bake Christmas cookies, make Christmas candy, and put my Christmas village up on my desk so I can admire it for a month or two. I’m going to watch way too many Christmas movies, and read my collection of Christmas romance novels. When I see someone, or take my leave of them, I’m going to wish them Merry Christmas. I may even go park my butt in a church pew and watch one of those plays I mentioned a few minutes ago.

And if this post offends anyone, I apologize. Happy Holidays to you. This the only time I’m saying it though.

***Photo Credit: KimberMontague

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2 Responses to Screw Political Correctness

  1. I felt like doing one of those air pumps with my fist and shouting “woohoo” while reading this post. I’m saying Merry Christmas too. I don’t really know what else I can add since you did such a great job in your post.

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