Krauthammer on Christmas

[billroper]

This column by Charles Krauthammer appeared in the Chicago Tribune yesterday. (But the source I've linked to doesn't require registration. So there.) I handed the paper over to daisy_knotwise to read, because we've been discussing the subject of the "de-Christmasing" of Christmas for a while and I thought she'd enjoy the article.

This is, of course, nothing new. I recall old gags about "getting the X out of Xmas". But it does seem to be an accelerating trend and I'd like to think there's some happy middle ground here.

Of course, it's the guys standing in the middle who get shot at by both sides.

Comments

[filkerdave.livejournal.com]

Like shsilver, I have always seen Christmas as a religious (and Christian) holiday.

I think that people should, in fact, be free to celebrate it in the manner they so choose. I do object to the assumption that I have any interest in celebrating it.

(Although if someone wishes me happy holidays, my answer this year has mainly been, "It was very nice, thanks. And same to you if you've got one coming up.")

[shsilver.livejournal.com]

If someone who doesn't know me wishes me Merry Christmas, I reply with a Merry Christmas also. If someone who knows I'm Jewish tells me to have a Merry Christmas, I wish them a Happy Chanukah. I may have a lengthy post on all this in the next day or so.

[billroper]

Seems fair to me.

(And if my brain processes have ever slipped in this fashion, I apologize.)

[shsilver.livejournal.com]

Don't think you ever have. And it isn't as if I would take offense at that, anyway. Just my semi-humorous way of reminding people that not everyone celebrates teh same holidays, especially when it comes to religion.

[shsilver.livejournal.com]

And if I wish someone a Merry Christmas and they simply respond "you, too," I allow myself to process it as Happy Chanukah.

[pbristow.livejournal.com]

Well, if wished you happy christmas - which I do, by the way! =:o} - then what I mean by it is: "this is the time of year known as Christmas, and (regardless of whether that time has religious significance to you), I want you to be happy at this time."

Oddly enough, although I am a christian, christmas (as a time of the year) *doesn't* hold any religious significance for me - although obviously for many Christians it does. In fact, it's the time of the year when I feel most oppressed by the prevailing religion in Britain - consumerism!

And it's not that I don't think people should also be happy at Channukah, or during Ramadan, or throughout the football season (mind-bogglingly stupid *& tedious game though it may be). I wish people a happy christmas, because our culture and our weather and the susceptibility of the elderly to hypthermia regularly conspire to make this the most miserable, stressful, grief-stricken week of the year. And because it's just about the only time in the year you can take a week off work secure in the knowledge that other people aren't busily adding a weeks' worth of work onto your existing backlog, ready for you to come back to... and if you waste being unhappy, boy that's a wasted opportunity you won't get to fix for another 51 weeks!

Hmm... I seem to have lots to say about this. I might turn this into a post in my own journal, actually.

Thanks for the inspiration! =:o}