Rachel Strehlow
Published: January 9, 2006
“Happy Holidays!” “Happy Christmakwanzakuh!” “Season’s Greetings!”
These are the politically correct terms that become more ridiculous every year. It’s no longer little baby Jesus in the nativity scene; it’s a “holiday infant.” Presents no longer lay under a Christmas tree; they lay under “multi-cultural trees.”
It’s the annual assumption that one mention of the words “Christmas” or “Jesus” causes someone, somewhere to be offended. Therefore, the majority of the United States (which celebrates Christmas) has to contend with the notion that its holiday seems to be obscene to the media and politicians.
So what is so offensive about saying “Merry Christmas”? Is it just that it may exclude those who are observing other holidays, ignoring the fact that Christmas is an age-old, peaceful holiday?
While it is certainly understandable to honor the beliefs and traditions of others, Christmas has been commercialized and politically twisted. Apparently, stealing it isn’t just for the Grinch anymore.
The media is content to broadcast that spending time with family, joy, and giving is what Christmas is really about, but they won’t come down from their politically correct pedestals long enough to admit that the real meaning of Christmas is the celebration of Jesus’ birth.
Even “Merry X-Mas” seems to have come too close to “Merry Christmas” for the media. Presents and menorahs are considered acceptable, but Christmas and the three wise men are not.
This desire to remove Christ from Christmas has been spread across nations more and more each year by the media and secular political agendas.
Even the clothing store the Gap forced its employees to refrain from saying “Merry Christmas.” In Canada, The Royal Canadian Mint changed its “Twelve Days of Christmas” program to the “Twelve Days of Giving.” Evangelicals esteeming presents for children in third world countries found themselves in hot water due to accusations that they were posing as a front for conversion.
In New York, when he was informed that the city would only allow pine trees as a Christian symbol, the president of the Catholic League stated, “All we’re asking for the city of New York to do is to treat Catholics the same way they do Jews and Muslims. This is nothing but pure, unadulterated religious discrimination.”
Why strip away this important piece of our heritage and the family traditions that go along with it? Why try to mold our country into a cookie-cutter system of beliefs where the majority is robbed of religion and culture because it’s considered politically incorrect?
So when the media asks why it’s such a big deal to stop saying “Merry Christmas,” my answer is this: if people let go of the word “Christmas,” there will finally be no real Christmas. Christmas is a valuable American tradition, a time for everyone to pause and take a break from their routine lifestyles to celebrate what they believe in.
No one moving to a Muslim country would demand that employers restrict their staff from saying any Muslim holiday greetings or demand that their cultural or religious holiday symbols be taken down. Why should Christianity be any different?
How far is this going to go? If the guy at the cash register is Jewish and wants to say “Happy Hannukah,” that’s fine. If he’s a Christian, let him say “Merry Christmas.”
Can’t everyone stop being so politically obsessive and just celebrate their own holidays their own way?