So, recently a lot of people have been talking about the “War on Christmas” and I really don’t understand
this entire argument. People say that by saying “happy holidays” what we actually mean is, “go Satan! Down
with all religion and let’s launch an attack on the Christians.” What I don’t understand is, haven’t
we been saying “happy holidays” for, like, decades now? When did a generic winter greeting turn into an “attack”
on religion?
I thought we said “happy
holidays” because there’s more than one holiday in winter. We have Christmas, Chanukah, Kwanza, and for those of us who don’t
give a crap about those, there’s still New Year’s. Does New Year’s not count anymore? Just because someone
is a different religious belief doesn’t mean that there isn’t a holiday. I don’t celebrate Kwanza, hell,
I didn’t even know what it was until about six years ago, but now I know it exists so I’m not going to pretend
it doesn’t because it’s not my religious holiday. It’s not like the “holiday” well wishers are
asking Christians, Jews, or anyone else to change religions, just acknowledge that there ARE other religions. That doesn’t
seem so strange to me.
This whole thing is
all just another way of polarizing the country. In my boring U.S. History class, sadly, a requirement for American Studies
majors, we talked for months about the Civil War and the road to the Civil War. The similarities to today are really quite
hilarious. During the Civil War, the crazy South felt attacked by the radical abolitionists in the North, even though most
people (including Abraham Lincoln) were more on the moderate side than die-hard rebels. Still, nearly every move the Northerners
made was perceived as an attack on “our way of life” for the South and vice versa. Hmm, “our way of life”
I think I’ve heard another annoying Southerner use that phrase a lot. Interesting that slavery was once considered “our
way of life” in America long before the phrase started
meaning gas-guzzling, internationally oblivious, uninformed, pro-life, middle class white people doing their thing. But I
digress…
Anyway, the point is
that during the 1850s the country was so polarized that people couldn’t even sneeze without it being considered a statement
for or against slavery. I feel like the exact same thing is going on today. I mean, damn, we can’t even tell someone
“happy holidays” without it being seen as a slam on one religion or another!
I really believe that
most people are not really against any religion, but there are a vocal few on either side that fuel the fires and keep this
idiotic debate going. There’s nothing wrong with that, we live in American and people, even stupid ones, can say whatever
they want.
The point is that it
just seems so foolish to me. I read an article in The Baltimore Sun today that
said that a man was upset because his child’s school calendar contained a few Christian and Jewish holidays, but there
was no note of Christmas on December 25th. My question was: who the hell cares? It’s a piece of paper with
the dates written on it, the purpose of which is to tell school kids when they have time off. If high school kids are anything
like they were way back in 2002 when I was in school, they don’t really give a crap about the reason they get off of
school, only that they DO get off of school.
But maybe that’s
the problem they see with the whole thing: that no one really cares about why we get time off school anymore. I know people
even freak out over Martin Luther King Jr. Day, which a lot of schools still don’t consider a holiday, Columbus Day
or even Presidents Day. As a kid, I never really cared about either. I was happy when we started getting MLK day off and sad
when we stopped getting Columbus Day off, not because of my moral stance or convictions, but because I just wanted to have
another day to hang out with my friends and not think about homework.
Maybe we should just
make generic holidays each month and avoid any religious or cultural connotations. That way we could shut up all the raving
lunatics and still have time off of school and work. I see no problem in “December Holiday Break” or “Yearly
Break #7” as long as I can have a day off. Of course, this would never work because religious nuts and psycho liberals
only want things their way. “Either everyone believes what I believe or I hate them and kill them,” that’s
the real American “way of life” and that’s too bad. Maybe that’s the real problem, people on either
side are both so crazy that no one in the middle has stepped up and said “hey, why do we even care about this?”
We had such a good
country going here for a little while, it’s a shame to see stupid meaningless crap like this drag it down the toilet.
But hey, even Thomas Jefferson said we should rise up and overthrow the government every hundred years or so just to keep
things in check. Don’t believe me? Just look it up in the Declaration of Independence, another thing I was required
to read this year. If there was a revolution, I wouldn’t really care how things changed as long as I could still have
my rights (like free speech and stuff) and get time off from school and work.
Those of us at
TRASHWIRE still wish all of you “Happy Holidays” because we really don’t care what you believe as long as
you visit our website. So let’s all just sit back and think about what really matters this holiday season: time off.
