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Most of us like to visit the festive Christmas sections of
department stores, specialty shops, and nurseries in hope of finding
a Christmas ornament, lighting fixture, stocking stuffer or tree for
the upcoming season. Yet, to our dismay, these as well as other
traditional Christmas items have been relabeled with the term
"holiday" – irrespective of the fact that Christmas is celebrated by
millions of Americans each year. Instead, we find ourselves shopping
for an elusive "holiday."
You load up on holiday ornaments,
holiday bows, holiday lighting, holiday wreaths, holiday Santa’s,
and even holiday trees! And then it occurs to you, which holiday do
they mean?! You think you know - surely the sales person, manager,
and corporate elite know - since they are taking your money. Sadly,
millions of Americans know, yet all are afraid to ask. You quietly
purchase your holiday loot and leave. You suppress the thought, but
deep down inside, you feel sort of... funny. It’s hard to describe,
but you remember what it was like back then – perhaps ten years ago,
maybe twenty - when the public celebration of Christmas wasn’t
banned. You remember a time when you could wish someone Merry
Christmas without feeling, let’s say, slightly offensive. But you
quickly push the thought aside and continue humming “we wish you
a merry HOLIDAY
“– no, it’s Christmas, right?
Christmas is celebrated by almost
2 billion people worldwide. 240 million Americans celebrate
Christmas in one form or another – that’s at least 80% of the
population. Unfortunately there seems to be a systematic approach to
treat Christmas differently than any of the other holidays we
recognize. You most certainly will find products for Hanukah,
Kwanzaa, and perhaps Ramadan. Surely, no one would think of renaming
the Menorah the "holiday candelabra" – nor should they. People of the other religions and
cultures would never tolerate such revisionism, yet why do we?
Perhaps, more importantly, why do they think they can get away with
it?
In most public schools,
businesses, and government offices, the mere mention of the word
“Christmas” is a pejorative term that is practically censored out of
existence. Paradoxically, many of these institutions have been on a
“Diversity” and “Inclusion” campaign that celebrate every
conceivable culture, language, and nationality. Public schools
celebrate “Hispanic Heritage Month” embracing the emergence of the
largest pool of new Immigrants, yet fail to mention that this same
group has contributed equally to the growth of the Christian and
Catholic ranks. Visit the U.S. Capitol lawn in December and witness
the “holiday tree” in its entire glory. Walk into your nearest
middle school or public library and admire the wonderful “holiday”
wreath, tree, or whichever term the powers-that-be decide would be
less offensive to those who don't celebrate Christmas.
And if you decide you want to
venture into the malls to do a little shopping, you'll discover how
the icons and vestiges of other religions are embraced, while the
Christmas equivalent is that of giant holiday ornaments, flying
reindeer and Santa's village - all with the ubiquitous "holiday"
mantra. The examples go on and on and on...
I recently asked a marketing
executive of the Discovery Store's corporate office why they engaged in revisionist
marketing and promotion? The response I received was astonishing. I
was told that they did not want to “offend” those who do not
celebrate Christmas, hence the term “holiday!” My response was that
I thought that executives who managed their businesses without
recognizing their target audiences, yet make money off of those same
consumers should be fired.
In an age where the ACLU and the
Americans United for the Separation of Church and State (AU) primarily
attack Christian religious references in the public space, it's interesting to
note that these same organizations refuse to challenge Maryland public school
policies within districts only a few miles outside our nation's
capital that officially recognizing Passover and Yom Kippur as
school sanctioned holidays, while at the same time conveniently
disregarding Christian holidays as First Amendment fodder. The hypocrisy is palpable, yet the
double standard saddening.
Christmas is our heritage.
Admittedly, it has been commandeered and secularized by many of the
same institutions and businesses that now seek to erase it. Whether
it was for the sake of the bottom line or a maniacally political
interpretation of the First Amendment, it has been used and abused
for decades. Christians stood by while anything religious was
supplanted with everything commercial, except by name. Now, the
revisionists want to wash it away completely. But what the
perpetrators fail to recognize (or don’t care about) is that for 2
billion people, Christmas is a religion, culture, and a tradition
that can’t be deleted like a mistake on a word processor. In fact,
it’s a faith that’s growing in many parts of the world. From our
perspective, it’s a gift to the world that’s celebrated with
passion, joy, love and, yes, a little commercialism – but it’s still
Christmas.
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