What People Are Getting Wrong This Week: the War on Christmas
It’s the holiday season, so I thought I’d take a look at the state of the supposed “War on Christmas.” I was hoping to point out some of the outrageous ideas religious people have about Christmas this year, but instead the clamor about the holiday being under siege seems to have died down.
However, this is not a sign of progress.
The War on Christmas is nothing new.
The phrase “War on Christmas” originated in 2000 in this blog post by Peter Brimelow , but it caught on shortly after Bill O’Reilly’s broadcast in 2004 with a segment called “Christmas Under Siege.”
“All over the country, Christmas is under fire,” Reilly crooned, before pointing out that cities are erecting “holiday trees” instead of “Christmas trees” and pointing to instances of public schools banning religious content. From there, books were written, tweets were posted, and outrage was fueled until the phrase “War on Christmas” became a household name.
But the sentiments behind the “War on Christmas” date back much further than its early 2000s heyday, to at least 1921, when notorious anti-Semite (and car manufacturer) Henry Ford wrote: “Last Christmas most people had a hard time finding Christmas. cards that in some way indicated that Christmas celebrated someone’s birth.”
While O’Reilly and his ilk tend not to specifically name the enemy in the Christmas War, Ford wasn’t shy. As you might have guessed, according to Ford, the Jews were to blame:
Jews not only do not agree with Christian teaching (which is their full right, and no one dares to challenge it), but they also seek to interfere with it. They preach and practice not religious tolerance among religious differences, but religious attack. This is evidenced by the entire history of Jewish opposition to Christmas, Easter and some patriotic songs.
The religiosity of post-war America eventually led to the prayers and celebration of Christmas in public schools, leading to a backlash when the courts ruled that much of it was unconstitutional, and this time of uncertainty led to the publication of Ur-War on Christmas Texts such like a brochure. “Christmas is coming?!” Hubert Kregelo of the John Birch Society:
The UN zealots launched an attack on Christmas in 1958, but are too late to get very far before the holy day approaches… However, at this very moment they are already busy trying to poison the 1959 Christmas season with their high pressure propaganda. What they now want to impose on the American people is this: department stores across the country must use UN symbols and emblems as Christmas decorations.
It’s a scary thing. However, the John Birch Society was not a powerful cultural force, and strange ideas about “UN fanatics” simmered beneath the surface of US cultural consciousness – until the dominance of Fox New in the early 2000s brought them to the surface.
The War on Christmas is not over
While the sentiment behind the War on Christmas – “evil globalists/democrats/Jews are oppressing Christians” – is alive and well, the religious right is currently silent about the “War on Christmas” itself, so quietly that it seems as if they are embarrassed.
The outrage of yesteryear has simply gone away. Even Starbucks’ once-reliable choice in holiday cup designs hasn’t angered anyone – sources for a recent Sun article headlined “Starbucks fans continue to boycott the popular chain and criticize its ‘War on Christmas’ over controversial cup campaign .” are:
-
Three links to a Facebook search for “Starbucks Christmas Cup War”
Gone are the days when conservatives could write an entire book about the war on a Christmas premise , and political operatives could easily score points by promising they would bring Merry Christmas greetings back to the White House (even though it never left). Even the inclusion of a Satanic Christmas tree at the Wisconsin Railroad Museum this year didn’t move the needle of outrage . The War on Christmas is over, right?
Not really. It would be nice to think that the people behind popularizing the “War on Christmas” concept would shut up about it because it’s such a ridiculous idea, but in fact they’ve moved on because it’s not sexy anymore. Constantly creating cultural outrage requires novelty. The enemies – modernity, Jews, “UN fanatics”, liberalism, people of color, etc. – remain the same as they were under Henry Ford, but they need to be dressed in new costumes, otherwise people will stop paying attention to them. Thus, Bud Light cans replace Starbucks cups. New scapegoats are replacing the old ones, and new, meaningless arguments are being created. In the 1970s, opponents of the ERA helped defeat the amendment by repeating the slogan that it would lead to unisex bathrooms (like the one in your home). In 2023, ” transgender people can use the bathroom, which I don’t approve of.” ! “There are always toilets with these people.
If you can’t get enough of making fun of people who take The War on Christmas seriously, don’t despair. It will come back. The popularity of using Christmas as a flashpoint for our ongoing cultural conflicts waxes and wanes, but it’s as much a holiday classic as Marie Carey’s All I Want for Christmas Is You. Once people forget enough, some future Henry Ford/Hubert Kregelo/Bill O’Reilly will say, “Look! Bad people are attacking Christmas!” and the war will resume. Because this is not really a war; This is just one of a million battles in a war that will never end.