Merry Holidays

This afternoon, while perusing the on-line edition of my local newspaper, The Orlando Sentinel, I encountered one of those survey forms designed to foment reader-to-reader discussions. A regular feature of the on-line edition, these surveys tend to collect responses to current issues mainly from boorish ignoramuses who need someplace to blow wind. Well, The Turkey, being a boorish ignoramus, has a place to blow wind right here and blow wind is what he’s going to do.

The issue for today was presumably innocuous: “Are you buying a holiday tree this year? If so, will it be real or artificial? How much will you spend?” This was the political correctness straw that broke the Turkey’s back, and about it I shall now blow appropriately hot breezes through this chilly forum.

What the hell is a “holiday tree”? This growing “sanitization” of Christmas—this de-Christianization—is an annoying pain in the ass. Is there no end to the overcorrections inherent in this exponentially growing political correctness movement?

Are people out there buying holiday trees? Hell, no! Does Ward come home to June and say, “Let’s go out and buy a holiday tree tonight, Honey!” Hell, no! Do people no longer celebrate Christmas? I submit that they do. In fact, in this country, about 85% of people specifically celebrate Christmas in one way or another, and probably more do it indirectly.

The news media are culpable for many of the efforts to de-Christianize “the holidays,” as a part of the great societal engineering project known as the political correctness movement. Long a feature of all levels of government, the movement has now spilled over into retail trade.

Some big retailing outfits such as Lowe’s and Wal-Mart have decided that it is appropriate to obliterate the word “Christmas” in the conduct of their business. Aside from renaming trees, retailers have forbidden their employees to utter the words “Merry Christmas.” This is hard to fathom. Retailers obviously would like to suck in revenues from all faiths or lack of same, apparently—especially, it seems—those pursuasions that do not include the celebration of Christmas. However, the conundrum is that in the process they’re alienating a fair number of Christians, whose pocketbooks provide most of their revenues. If I ran a retail store, I would sell Christmas trees, not holiday trees.

Interestingly enough, this banner at a Lowe’s home improvement store features fresh cut “holiday trees” in English but Christmas trees (árboles de Navidad) in Spanish.

The city of Boston, Massachusetts set off a big stink this year when they chose to call their annual Christmas tree a holiday tree. After Christian groups threatened to sue, the city fathers quickly backed down.

From the Boston Herald, November 23:

“This is a Christmas tree,” Boston Parks Commissioner Toni Pollak insisted about the Nova Scotia spruce the city will light Dec. 1 on historic Boston Common. “It’s definitely a Christmas tree.”

However, the city’s official Web site refers to the event as “Boston’s Official Holiday Tree Lighting.”

Included in the web site’s description of Boston’s Official Holiday Tree Lighting is this sentence: “The holiday decorations throughout Boston Common and The Public Garden will light up in sequence when Mayor Menino throws the switch with Santa Claus.” So, I guess Santa Claus passes the political correctness test, although it is hard to envision Santa Claus sliding down a Muslim chimney. Otherwise, perhaps this is merely a sanitization oversight by an overworked city employee in charge of web site political correctness.

Where are we headed with this? Will we soon be hearing sanitized versions of old Christmas standards on the radio? “It’s Beginning to Look a Lot Like Holidays“???? How about Christmas stories like Charles Dickens’ “A Holiday Carol”???? And what of O. Henry’s “The Gift of the Magi”—will we have to rewrite it to remove all references to Christmas? Or will we just put it on the forbidden list for our schoolchildren?

And who are the morons who are perpetrating this crapola? Largely Christians. Christians who are in denial about their Christianity perhaps, but still Christians, born and bred. Many of them, products of what our public schools have become, have been indoctrinated in feeling bad about being in the majority. Do whut, Bubba?

(Hey, it’s the cornerstone of the political correctness movement. If you’re white, Anglo-Saxon, Protestant, and male, you ain’t shit, man!)

Yes, these are Christians who celebrate Christmas, but who condemn other Christians for committing the ultimate sin of wanting to observe their holiday traditions in public. These hypocrites are not curtailing their own Christmas celebrations. They are just telling everybody else to do so. Oh, granted, there are a few atheists running around asserting their “rights,” but by and large, these yo-yos are Christian.

Let’s face it, folks. Christians are by far the majority in this country, and that has always been the case. The influx of Spanish-speaking immigrants has only made it more so. Our founding fathers came here to escape being persecuted for practicing their religions, which they were forced to practice privately. So, now, in the name of our founding fathers, we’re telling the majority, the descendents of those founding fathers, that they have to practice their rituals in private—that they’re not to mention the name of Christ in public.

Oh, yeah, I recognize that Christianity has had its sordid chapters, too, like the Ku Klux Klan running around perpetrating their racist crap supposedly in the name of Christ. But we’re not talking about donning white sheets, burning crosses, and conducting lynchings on Saturday night. We’re talking about Christmas trees, Christmas carols, and creches. We’re talking about saying Merry Christmas.

The Nittany Turkey, who is not Christian, does not participate in the religious celebration of Christmas. However, I have no issues with those who do and I happen to enjoy this festive season.

How silly all this is! In the interest of universal tolerance, we have become intolerant toward the vast preponderance of Americans. It’s a ridiculous charade.

Merry Christmas!