Have a Holly Jolly WHATADOOFUSFinding common ground at Christmasby Thomas Lindaman Yes, dear reader, it’s December, and it’s time for my annual plea for sanity when it comes to celebrating the various winter holidays of this month. This year’s plea originated with an email I received from my cell phone program wishing me a Happy Chrismahanukwanzakah It’s not enough that Jews and Gentiles have similar religious backgrounds, we now have to share a holiday greeting? Maybe I’m going a bit overboard on this one, but I’m not exactly thrilled that this happened. I want to know who it was who came up with this idea so that I can properly thank them for marginalizing two major world religions in one fell swoop. And to combine two holidays that happen at different times of the month? That’s an idea so bad that I’m looking for a Congressman’s signature somewhere on the documentation. But then, I got to thinking. If we’re doing this with Hanukkah and Christmas, why not save time and combine all of the holidays held in December? Let’s see, there’s Hanukkah, Christmas, Kwanzaa, Ramadan (sometimes), Boxing Day, and New Years Eve. We could call it…Ramevesboxhansmas . On second thought, maybe not. It sounds more like the title of a German porno film. Besides, we don’t want the ACLU to come after us for the religious content. Well, that, and the fact that we’d be laughing too hard at an ACLU lawyer issuing the cease and desist order and pronouncing the name of the holiday to get anything done. So, maybe we can go the other way. How about a holiday that has no religious connotations whatsoever? We could call it…Winter Holidays And Traditions Absolutely Devoid Of Offensive Follies Undermining Sensitivity, or simply, WHATADOOFUS. It could be held in a week, no, make that a whole month! That way people could celebrate at their leisure. And think of the sales! Instead of the post-pre-post-post-pre-post-pre-Christmas sales, we could have one monthlong shop-a-thon! You would have to pry retailers off the Hubble Telescope if this idea takes hold. Well, then we’d have to rework some of the holiday traditions. Imagine the joy of greeting someone, “Hey, Bob! Happy WHATADOOFUS!” (And provided your jaw heals up in time to have solid foods, you can smile as you enjoy the WHATADOOFUS tofurkey.) Christmas carols would be out, but replacing them would be little ditties like this WHATADOOFUS classic: Oh Non-Denominational night And who could resist tapping his or her toes to this one? You better watch out, you better not cry Come to think of it, all of this changing stuff around just to placate the ACLU and vocal minorities is a lot of work, and possibly unnecessary. There is a reasonable expectation that if you respect someone else’s faith that they return the favor. Apparently, that expectation is no longer in vogue in our politically correct society. Instead, we have to please some of the people all of the time while forcing most of the people to play along or be called a racist or a religious bigot. Well, slings and arrows of outrageous political correctness be damned. I’m proud to be a Christian and I’m going to celebrate Christmas in the way my faith suggests. I’m going to pray to God, celebrate the wonder of Jesus, and maybe even give a tilt of the hat to the Holy Spirit while I’m at it. And if you’re offended by that, so be it, but that does not give you sanction to force me to accept a different faith when mine isn’t given the same consideration. And if you’re one of the people who might be offended at my celebration of Christmas, do me a favor. Before you shoot off an angry email to me, have a glass of eggnog and chill out! What I’m advocating isn’t a dismissal of other holidays, but rather an acknowledgement of all holidays, not just the few with good PR machines in place. You celebrate your way, I’ll celebrate mine, and everyone’s happy. And isn’t happiness one of the things that we’re supposed to be feeling this time of year? And that’s the Bottom Line. For permission to reprint this article, please contact us at editor@commonconservative.com |