It’s not like Christmas is even the only Christian holiday of the season, or that it falls on the same day for every sect (I’m thinking of Greek and Russian Orthodox, specifically). As I recall, the big celebration in many countries is at the Epiphany, two weeks after Christmas. What would Jesus do? I’d like to think he’d smite their asses with a stern, “Cut it out dudes! This is not what I meant!” As I recall, the only biblical story he got really angry during was when people were misusing the temple to serve themselves instead of God. This strikes me as in the same vein.

It’s not about not wanting anyone to say “Merry Christmas”, it’s about not bullying people into saying it.

Yes, and see that I agree with. It should be choice to say “Merry Christmas”, “Happy Holidays” or whatever you want. Policy to say something is okay, I think (being the season and all), but not to limit them to only one thing and/or firing them for not compling with it.

However, from your article I did not get that as the point (it seemed to me to only be about being annoyed that people were wishing you, as a Jew, a Merry Christmas) at all. I only know it from 1)Mom’s rant and 2) your reply. I recommend (and was interested where that info came from anyway) either an addition to that post, or a follow up one that specifically addresses that (as I think it’s valid) issue.

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(Excerpt from Federal Holidays: Christmas):

Most Protestants and Roman Catholics and some Orthodox Christians celebrate the birth of Jesus on December 25. Before the 19th century, many Americans worked on Christmas, but in the industrial era the holiday began also to honor universal values, such as home, children and family life, and to incorporate secular customs like exchanging gifts and cards, and the decoration and display of evergreen “Christmas Trees.” Congress proclaimed Christmas a federal holiday in 1870. In 1999, a federal court acknowledged these secular aspects in rejecting a claim that the holiday impermissibly endorsed and furthered a particular religious belief.
States and private employers are free to adopt their own holidays. Six of the federal legal holidays—New Year’s Day; Washington’s Birthday/Presidents’ Day; Memorial Day; Independence Day; Labor Day; Thanksgiving and Christmas—are observed nearly universally throughout the public and private sectors. States sometimes observe holidays not recognized by the federal government. New Jersey, for instance, observes Lincoln’s Birthday, Good Friday and Election Day; Virginia celebrates Lee-Jackson Day, honoring Confederate generals Robert E. Lee and Thomas Jonathan (”Stonewall”) Jackson, and the Day after Thanksgiving, affording state employees a four-day holiday weekend.

Seems to me that O’Reilly, Fox, Falwell and other Christian fundamentalists are waging their war in all the wrong places. Doesn’t it make more sense to confront Congress and the Supreme Court for officially proclaiming Christmas to be a religious and secular holiday rather than targeting U.S. citizens?

BTW, while researching this topic I came across some great websites. There’s the company that produced the movie “The God Who Wasn’t There.” Also on this site was the director’s Blog, which in turned linked to a refreshingly sensitive ctitique of the movie by a Christian: (“nice Christian criticism of the movie”) The site is still under construction and a little hard to navigate at the moment, but worth some effort.

And, yes, I am fucking annoyed to hear “Merry Christmas” now because they’ve made such an issue about it that companies have started making it policy to say that instead of a generic term that includes everyone. And, furthermore, firing anyone who doesn’t comply with those kinds of restrictions.

It’s not about not wanting anyone to say “Merry Christmas”, it’s about not bullying people into saying it. And that is what O’Reilly and his God Warriors are trying to do.

Re: Copy/Paste bug - I have no idea why the problem is occuring. It’s an IE problem that I haven’t been able to sit down and try to fix yet. Also, it appears to have happened only with a newer version, as my laptop (as of the last time I checked) could highlight stuff fine. Sorry about the issue, but in my opinion it’s just another strike against IE and it’s crappy construction. I’ll fix it as soon as I can.

By now, I’m sure y’all have heard about the so-called War on Christmas. Because, you know, Christians in America are an oppressed group.

In my opinion, it has nothing to do with being an ‘oppressed’ group at all. It has everything to do with trying to take the religious aspect out of a religious holiday. Okay, yes, a lot of people celebrate it with nothing at all to do with the religion and wouldn’t know any of the significance behind most of it, but it is about the Christian faith. You know Christmas.

I don’t even think it’s a PC thing. I am all for being PC and including the other religious celebrations this time of year (Jewish, Bahi, etc.), but I wouldn’t expect them to be down played, what I expect is for them to be included as they are. It is not PC in my view to say “Happy Holidays”, that is just covering all your bases so you don’t leave someone out. PC is to say “Merry Christmas and Happy Hanukah”. Now, if you are saying “Happy Holidays” because it is less of a mouthful and includes all the ones you may not know/remember, well, that’s fine, but I think trying to force people to only use “Happy Holidays” if they are actually celebrating Christmas is not right. Same way as forcing someone to use “Happy Holidays” if they celebrating Hanukah. So long as you are expressing what you are celebrating with whatever significance it has to you, then I think everyone else should just stay out of it.

I was on the phone with the representative and after we had resolved everything she said, “Ha… Merry Christmas.”

Now, here, see, again, I just don’t find there to be an issue if she was celebrating Christmas so wished you a nice one. I am sure in this case it was just a company thing, and in the interest of having no clue who their customers are, yes, “Happy Holidays” probably would have been better to cover it all. I look at it as if someone wished me a “Happy Hanukah” I would not mind. I would take it as them wishing me holiday cheer in the form that they experience it.

I’d just like to give a big “thumbs down” to Safeway/Hallmark for excluding me, my family, and our non-Christian friends with your Christian-only holiday cards.

Actually, it was probably the store, not Hallmark. I say that because there are a crap load of Hanukah ones on our shelves down here. Okay, well, not as many as the Merry Christmas, but there are options. Yes, they should have had some, but my guess is the manager just did not think to stock them, especially if the area is not one with much demand for them. It’s all about what they can sell.

My point being that I think it is an issue to try and remove the religious (and Christmas/Hanukah/whatever are religious, no matter how commercialized they have become) significance of any faith’s holiday, whatever that is. PC is to sit there and list them all. Generic greetings are a nice way to be safe if you don’t want to list or have no clue, but I don’t think it’s rude to wish someone whatever you celebrate and if you get wished a merry/happy something you don’t, well, I just don’t think it’s anyone trying to force something down your throat. It’s just the time of year and people being nice and cheery for like the two weeks out of the year that most people don’t seem to hate the rest of the human race.

(and totally aside- why the hell can’t I copy an entire article so I can paste it into a more convenient editor for responding? It only lets me copy one paragraph at a time or it just highlights everything but the article)