Say It Loud And Say It Proud: Merry Christmas!
By Ann Huggett (12/19/03)
If anyone ever doubted the veracity of David Limbaugh's latest book, Persecution (How Liberals Wage the War Against Christianity), then all you have to do is see the all-out assault on the very holiday of Christmas this year.
I don't know if you've noticed it or not but the word "Christmas" is being used less and less as time goes on, and I'm not only talking about public school programs. I'm talking about corporate culture and media programming. It's not just kids getting the full court anti-Christmas press but now it's each and every one of us. No matter where we look, whether it's on HGTV or ABC, you will rarely if ever, hear "Christmas" said in reference to what we celebrate the world over in December.
For a country whose Founding Fathers acknowledged the great debt owed to Christianity, and who understood that freedom of religion was a vital right for everyone, we are being systematically stripped of any Christian reference in the name of religious tolerance by the highly intolerant left. As stated in the Communist Manifesto, "Communism abolishes eternal truths, it abolishes all religion, and all morality." To accomplish that goal the leftists hooked onto and hyper inflated a hypothetical "Separation of Church and State", which is now so beloved by the professional Constitutional penumbral rights hallucinators of activist judges and the ACLU.
Now, instead of wishing everyone "Merry Christmas", we are subjected to "Season's Greetings", "Happy Holidays", and "Winter Festival" to name a few drippy, gray, generic tags dreamed up by the Take-Christ-out-of-Christmas crowd. I've actually heard the word "holiday" used without any reference to what is being celebrated.
Don't believe me? When popular FOX News host, Bill O'Reilly, recently interviewed NYC Public Advocate, Mark Green, on The O'Reilly Factor about the assault on Christmas, Green actually refused to even say "Christmas" until O'Reilly verbally bludgeoned him into saying it. Take a look at your corporation's Christmas displays or party invitations and just try to find the word "Christmas" anywhere. You'll see "holiday" this and that or maybe "Winter" so-and-so but "Christmas"? No way! How about on TV? I'd estimate that 85% of all commercials and programming are in the "Season's Greetings" vein rather than "Merry Christmas". Newspapers are no better although small, family owned shops, which purchase advertising, still speak of Christmas.
In fact, I can't remember when the very name of Christmas was so reviled. In the '50s that dreadful "Xmas" popped up but it was so blatant an assault on the name of Christ that it fell out of favor eventually. However, this did not stop the secularists. They have an agenda and Christmas has got to go right down to attacking the quasi-religious Santa Claus. Thanks to the formerly family-friendly Disney studios, which owns Miramax, Billy Bob Thornton is hammering that right jolly old elf, Santa Claus, in ugly obscenity in Bad Santa.
The most blatant example of anti-Christmas corporate advertising is Target. In their TV ad this year you see the usual frenzy of gift giving for them but without any reference to why the buying orgy is taking place. The music, lest it be identified even subliminally as a Christmas carol, is instead Toni Tennille singing, "Love will keep us together". So...what event are we celebrating? Valentine's Day?
Things are no better over in the UK either. The International Red Cross, which was founded to show Christian charity on the battlefront by the devout Henri Durant, who also founded the Young Man's Christian Association (YMCA), banned Nativity scenes and any reference to Mary, Joseph, and the Magi in their stores during the Christmas season lest they "offend" minority sensibilities. As one wag put it, "Does that mean the Red Cross is now the International Plus Sign?"
What is so sad about all this religious censorship is that nearly every aspect of Christmas has a religious meaning. This means eventually the very celebration of Christ's birth will have to be destroyed. The New York public school system is doing just that by claiming that Christ's birth never happened!
So let's look at Christmas and its symbolism. The very word "Christmas" is a shortening of Christ Mass, celebrates the birth of Christ, and is a holyday of obligation for Catholics. That word "holyday" was secularized to "holiday" so since "holiday" has a religious basis, we better get rid of that word too. The Christmas tree, which is a fir to show eternal life because it does not "die" by shedding its leaves like a deciduous tree, is a symbol of the Tree in the Garden of Eden and the various sweets and ornaments represent the apple from the Tree of Knowledge. Better get rid of the tree too just to be safe. Poinsettias are a relative newcomer to the Christmas scene in Europe but these Mexican plants' blood red leaves symbolize the blood shed by Christ, and their tiny center flowers, which look like spikes, represent the nails used to affix Christ to the cross. Can't have that in the secular house!
The holly wreath symbolizes Christ's crown of thorns so that's gone. Candy canes are sugary representatives of Christ's staff as Good Shepard and therefore St. Nicholas' Bishop's staff. Good-bye candy canes! Don't even think of using stars or bells since the Star of the Nativity guided the Magi to Christ's crib and church bells peal out the glad tidings to all men. Way too religious! And angels? Hah! They simply reek with religion, goodness, and spirituality. No, no, no, no, no.
Speaking of Magi, they were the original gift givers presenting the Christ Child with presents fit for a king. That's why we exchange gifts on Christmas and it's also why gifts are also exchanged on January 6th, which is the 12th day of Christmas when the Magi found Christ, and is also called Ephiany. The Magi were Zoroastrian astrologers and their acknowledgement of Christ's birth showed that Christ was for all men. Guess that rules out gift giving...oh, wait...that will never do...the corporations won't allow that. Their greed factor is greater than their fear of religion. Guess gift giving can be retained.
As for all that snow, everybody talks about the weather but no one does anything about it. Christ's birth historically was in the spring but Church fathers moved the date of celebration of Christ's birth to rival the Roman Saturnalia festival held on December 21. The snow can stay since how else can you rationalize all those cute polar bears and penguins that are popping up everywhere this time of year? Mistletoe is a European pagan symbol carryover, which has harmlessly morphed into an excuse to get a kiss. Atheists need love too so mistletoe can stay.
After all this editing nothing is left but snowflakes, mistletoe, and consumerism so voila! The Target Christmas ad for 2003 as mentioned earlier singing about showing love, love, love by buying yet another poorly made sweater imported from that bastion of secular humanism, the People's Republic of China. Now why should I indulge in a meaningless orgy of consumerism at the end of the year when I have pretty much everything I want already and show my love to my spouse and family year round? In that America which is a shopper's paradise, what motivation is left for December 25th once it's stripped of all true meaning? Are we supposed to gather round a pile of crumbled gift wrapping in the town square and sing ersatz love songs a la the Whos of Whoville in an aftermath mirror image of our culture once the irreligious Grinch like left has stolen the blessedness of Christmas?
In a sense Christianity has come full circle in its history. In its earliest years, Christians were persecuted because they refused to acknowledge or worship the Roman Emperor, who was considered the ultimate human manifestation of the state, as a god. Because modern moral and religious people do not recognize the state as higher than God, the state, and those institutions perverted through socialism, is setting about persecuting Christianity in increasingly unsubtle ways. The First Amendment to the Constitution prohibits the state from interfering in the free exercise of religion but the state over and over again does just that. It's just now instead of one Nero we have thousands of petty bureaucrats doing the persecuting. Those adherents to non-Christian religions need to understand that once the secular humanists destroy one religion they'll go on to the next.
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