| The Daily Show With Jon Stewart | Mon - Thurs 11p / 10c | |||
| The Gretch Who Saved the War on Christmas | ||||
| ||||
It seems like everything that can be said about the "War on Christmas" is being said by folks a lot more clever and witty than I, so I'll go about this in a not so witty way.
Part way through the clip, Stewart points out that you just have to look around to see that Christmas is the dominant cultural event - it's everywhere. It's not in any danger.
But that made me think; maybe that, the ever more iridescent and over-the-top displays of Christmas spirit are the problem. I mean, what could be less Christ-like than a crowd at Wal-Mart stampeding someone to death to get the best price on toner and Tickle Me Elmo?
Anyone who has ever worked in retail or food service knows that Christmas shopping turns even normally nice customers into cruel, vicious assholes who treat others worse than I'd like to treat the freaking mouse that's making merry under my fridge as we speak. What could be less Christ-like than that?
I mean, if I were Christ, I'd be a lot less worried about who is and is not kissing my ass on my birthday than I would be about the kids who will starve to death on my birthday. I'd be more worried about the women who will be raped on my birthday, the acts of torture that will occur, the alarming up-tick of incidents of domestic violence around my birthday.
I'd probably be more worried about the hundreds of thousands dying in wars all over my beloved planet than an imagined war in which not a single person has been hurt or died. And I'd be worried, more than anything, about how many people could get my message of love, peace, and tolerance so horrifically screwed up. On my birthday no less.
2 comments:
Except... y'know it's probably not really Jesus's birthday, cus his real birthday was probably sometime in February or March and the early Church simply co-opted the existing pagan holidays of the time (e.g. Winter Solstice, Yule, Saturnalia). In fact for most of Christian history, Christmas wasn't even especially celebrated until the Charles Dickens and the Victorians turned it from a holiday of basically feasting and debauchery to one of gift giving and good will to mankind.
I'm not religious in any way except about cake, but I support Christmas existing as a celebration and the right to call it Christmas because it is. I support the right of other religions to call their celebration something else. Whatever.
I agree with you that there are way more important things in the world to rage against than Christmas. Just let everyone call their holiday whatever the hell they want and get to worrying about things that actually matter, that's what I say.
And the only Jesus I know comes from Cancun! :)
Post a Comment