The war on Christmas

After the customary New Year’s-to-Halloween cease-fire, it appears the so-called "war on Christmas" is on once again.

(Yeah, ‘cause everybody hates that Santa Claus dude… I mean, what is it with those creepy little elves, anyway?)

But seriously -- a state of being that can be difficult to achieve when discussing a subject which cries out for common sense as much as this one does -- let’s try to parse the issues here.

America has a long tradition of celebrating Christmas and incorporating Christmas trappings such as trees, stockings, gifts, etc. into our culture. So do the majority of so-called Western cultures. And frankly, I haven’t heard anyone anywhere make any sort of serious suggestion that we stop doing so.

What has been suggested is that we try to at least acknowledge that -- gasp -- not everyone in America celebrates Christmas, and certainly, not everyone who celebrates Christmas celebrates it in the same way. There are those who celebrate Christmas as a commemoration of the birth of Jesus Christ. There are those who celebrate Christmas as a more secular mid-winter gift-giving and gathering-family-together holiday. And there are those who during the month of December celebrate some other holiday -- Hannukah, Kwanzaa, Winter Solstice, insert yours here.

What is happening today is that people and companies and governments are being confronted by the diversity of the American populace and attempting to adapt. This diversity of thought and belief and tradition and culture is no longer a trend; it is a fact. You can like it or not like it, accept or not accept it, but it does not change the facts on the ground, facts to which companies and governments and individuals must adapt if they wish to continue to function effectively in modern society.

On the specific subject of the Christmas-centric marketing of goods, this old and fading habit seems doubly problematic. First of all, you have a substantial segment of the population that doesn’t celebrate Christmas, and second of all, you have the cheapening of the religious meaning of Christmas through its use as a marketing tactic. Many faithful Christians have become more and more disgusted by the commercialization of Christmas and the corruption of its spiritual meaning into a cultural imperative to “buy more stuff.” News flash: Jesus was not a capitalist tool. Quite the opposite.

When Pat Buchanan and company rail over the loss of American culture, what they seem incapable of comprehending is that culture is and always has been a moving target. The cultural norms and traditions of today were all new once, years or centuries ago. They came about through (now here’s a loaded phrase) a natural evolution of the culture, which will continue no matter how many people stand around on soapboxes of one kind or another shouting at the top of their lungs that they don’t want it to. You might as well try to tell the moon to stop going full every month.

It seems what’s needed here -- as in so many arguments we hear today -- is a little common sense. They’re Christmas trees; call them what they are. And put those Hannukah and Kwanzaa candles right there next to them on the catalog page. The inclusion of one tradition does not have to equal the exclusion of others, or the homogenization of all. And if in the checkout line this weekend you wish me a Merry Christmas and I wish you a Happy Hannukah, let’s neither one of us take offense, ‘kay?