Tis the Season: Christmas Wars Begin Again

Tis the Season: Christmas Wars Begin Again

Tis the Season: Christmas Wars Begin Again

With Thanksgiving now behind us, be prepared for the 2019 version of the Christmas Wars. It’s that time of year when politicians and activists abandon niceties in this season of Good Will Towards Men. Or is Persons the correct term this year?

The mayor of Charleston, WV, fired an early shot in October when she made the following pronouncement on the city’s Facebook page:

“The Charleston Winter Parade will begin at the corner of the Kanawha Boulevard and Capitol Street.”

Did you get that? Winter Parade, not Christmas Parade, which is how the small city of 48,000 has always known it. But Mayor Amy Goodwin wanted to be inclusive, so she arbitrarily changed the name of the event. So let it be written, so let it be done.

But the mayor didn’t allow the citizens to express their opinions on the name change. Even the city council didn’t know about it; one member wondered if he missed a vote. Did we vote on that? he puzzled.

Mayor Goodwin didn’t see what the problem was.

“I wanted to show that Charleston is a welcoming and inclusive city.”

On top of that, Goodwin’s 15-year-old son told her it was an awesome plan. After all, he consulted members of a church youth group he attended, and the teens told him they were cool with it. “You’re totally good on this,” he told his mother, according to her recollections.

Because teenagers are sages of wisdom, right?

Of course, because Mayor Goodwin didn’t bother to consult the residents of the largely Christian city, there was a lot of pushback. As the President of the West Virginia Chamber of Commerce said: “The community reaction was a collective groan. It’s a cute little parade with cute little kids and can’t we just have a Christmas parade?”

Indeed. Can’t they just have a cute little Christmas parade?

Now the mayor didn’t want to exclude the minority Jewish and Muslim populations of Charleston in her pronouncement. However, she also didn’t bother to consider another minority: Charleston’s African-American population. The Reverend Matthew J. Watts of the black Grace Bible Church said that not only have local officials ignored the needs of black residents, the mayor was now “shunning Jesus,” too.

Well, that’s awkward.

The battle lines in the Christmas Wars are not only in West Virginia. Earlier this month, WI Gov. Tom Evers, a first year Democrat, called for students to submit ornaments for the “Capitol Holiday Tree” in Madison, which would have the theme “Celebrate Science.”

“I first began my career as an educator teaching science in Baraboo, Wisconsin, and I have often said that science is part of my DNA—and it’s part of yours, too! That’s why I am excited to announce the 2019 Capitol Holiday Tree theme is “Celebrate Science.””

And if you believe that this theme is merely about the wonders of nature, let me offer you a great deal on a bridge. This is a thinly veiled slap at conservative Republicans, whom Democrats love to ridicule as being “anti-science,” despite the fact that it’s the Left who insist that men can have babies, too.

Naturally, this stunt sent Wisconsin state politicians into another food fight in the continuing Christmas Wars.

Is this really that big a deal? After all, post December 25th, the War will go into stasis until next year.

But Dennis Prager says that yes, this really is a big deal. In fact, he says, this is another way that the Left wants to secularize our culture.

I think he makes some very good points. By the way, Prager has no dog in this hunt — he’s Jewish.

Moreover, maintaining a holiday sacred to the majority religion helps to protect the rights of religious minorities, too. That’s what the late Rabbi Jakob J. Petuchowski wrote in an article entitled “A Rabbi’s Christmas:”

“One could argue, therefore, that the very self-interest of the Jews is at stake in preventing the United States from becoming a totally godless society.”

Let’s be honest, though: Christmas has long morphed into secularized consumerism. Glitz and bling have long muted the religious origin of the season; witness the garishness of celebrities trying to out-decorate each other, with some spending up to $200K. Plus, some of the fondest memories of my childhood Christmases involve visiting the Marshall Field’s department store in Chicago. Few commercial spectacles could match Field’s and its 45-foot Christmas tree standing in the very middle of the store, or its legendary windows — all advertising merchandise within.

Christmas Wars

Marshall Field’s announcing Christmas. Credit: Richie Diesterheft@flickr/CC BY-ND 2.0.

But these Christmas Wars are not about consumerism, although I’m pretty sure AOC would love to see an equal distribution of gifts to the good children on Santa’s nice list. In fact, she and Bernie Sanders would probably like to see the jolly old elf go full socialist.

What may seem like short, silly skirmishes between conservatives and liberals are really part of the radical Left’s ongoing campaign to rid America of religious faith, particularly Christianity.

 

Featured image: Union Station Christmas, Kansas City. From the author’s personal collection.

Written by

Kim is a pint-sized patriot who packs some big contradictions. She is a Baby Boomer who never became a hippie, an active Republican who first registered as a Democrat (okay, it was to help a sorority sister's father in his run for sheriff), and a devout Lutheran who practices yoga. Growing up in small-town Indiana, now living in the Kansas City metro, Kim is a conservative Midwestern gal whose heart is also in the Seattle area, where her eldest daughter, son-in-law, and grandson live. Kim is a working speech pathologist who left school system employment behind to subcontract to an agency, and has never looked back. She describes her conservatism as falling in the mold of Russell Kirk's Ten Conservative Principles. Don't know what they are? Google them!

2 Comments
  • GWB says:

    While it is a progressive war on the Judeo-Christian underpinnings of Western Civilization (and a direct attack on Christianity), it shouldn’t be something we take as too powerful of an attack. It’s a water gun on a battlefield. Keep your own Christmas, and wish well upon others as you will. And never let them take away your joy in the reason for the season.

    Especially remember that for those who celebrate Christmas (as opposed to all the gift-giving and such) we’ve already won.

  • Bill S. says:

    Christmas is a holiday dedicated to obscene consumerism. Saying Merry Christmas isn’t going to change that.

    Christ’s birth is a footnote in the Gospels. The date of Christmas was chosen to replace the pagan celebration of winter solstice because no one really knew when Christ was born.

    Christianity is all about Easter. The resurrection of Christ. Yet Christians allow this most important event to be replaced by the Easter Bunny, painted eggs and college kids getting drunk and fornication on Spring Break.

    Pathetic.

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