Holidays the enemy?
By Travis Walters
How many current American wars can you name? Afghanistan, Iraq, the war on drugs, is there more? I bet you missed the War on Christmas. That’s right; with 44 days until Christmas, America’s favorite war is back! Championed by Bill O’Reilly, the war this year has expanded to cover Hanukkah. Not properly outfitted? Don’t worry. O’Reilly sells bumper stickers on his Web site that read, “Merry Christmas.” Secular progressives, that dark, twisted enemy of this war don’t say “Merry Christmas,” they don’t say anything at all. True patriots say Merry Christmas.
Secular progressives, in case you were unaware, are the wanton bands of un-merry miscreants that seek out the happiness and joy of a season and drag it dancing and singing back to the dark hollow they call home. There they bury it forever beneath the lurid call of their hatred for joy.
The War started on Nov. 9 last year. O’Reilly has made no overt shot at the enemy as yet, but it is coming. The War on Christmas is good for ratings and now that he’s included Hanukkah it’s bound to be the best war yet. It’s such a shame he only drags it out during the holiday season. You’d think given his vitriolic hatred for those opposed to the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, he’d fight to win.
I find that Christmas keeps getting earlier and earlier. It has consumed Thanksgiving. The once proud holiday that now merely serves as the starting point for “serious shopping.” True patriots for the cause started their shopping weeks earlier. I went into work Sunday, Nov. 9, and found myself resetting all of our window displays. We removed every poster and mannequin, sprayed a glaze on the windows to give them a frosty appearance, hung posters of a snowy Central Park and put out lighted Christmas trees. We don’t have all our Christmas product in, but we’re prepared for it.
I fear next year that Christmas will start in October and force Halloween to become the Orange Christmas. At least then the elves and fairies would be appropriate, though I think this debasement would further enrage O’Reilly. If anyone should be angry, it should be the pagan holiday that Christmas replaced. Dec. 25 used to mark the pagan Roman holiday Dies Natalis Solis Invicti, the birthday of the unconquered Sun.
There’s no need to worry about Christmas on Nov. 9. What could you do today that you couldn’t do on any one of the 20 days left in this month, or the 24 before Christmas? The answer is nothing. There’s also no need for a war on something no one is fighting. Christmas isn’t going anywhere, it makes too much money. Just because I don’t say “Merry Christmas” doesn’t mean I want it to go away. There are also no clear objectives to this “war.” The war aspect only appears when someone sues to remove a nativity or says “Happy Holidays” at Walmart. Secular progressives aren’t removing Christmas from the saying because they hate Christmas. Saying “Happy Holidays” is easier than saying “Merry Christmas and Happy Hanukkah”. Wouldn’t the War on Christmas and Hanukkah be easier if it were the War on Holidays? I bet in his zeal O’Reilly forgets why the war started and calls it the War on Holidays, especially once he adds Kwanza.
