If you think there's an instance where Christmas is being suppressed in your town, school or workplace, send me a note and I'll look into it
The address he gives for that is waronchristmas@johngibson.com. Before you write there, please read his "My Word" on the subject first - or his book - so you won't be shooting from the hip, eh?
Click on the book cover below to order or for more information from Barnes & Noble.
The War on Christmas: How the Liberal Plot to Ban the Sacred Christian Holiday is Worse Than You Thought
I was raised in a very secular household, but we never had any trouble with Christmas. We had a tree - with an angel on top, no less: we were just taught that the angel had no more meaning than reindeer (of which we had a whole herd, decoration-wise). When I got a little older I briefly got caught up in the "freedom from religion" ruckus (of which banning Christmas symbols is only part of the plan), but I couldn't get what those folks were telling me and what I was seeing with my own eyes to jibe. I look at Gibson's book, and it gives me an odd feeling - I came awfully close to becoming one of those activists he's warning you about. If you think that gives me unique insights, you might be right, but at the moment it sure doesn't feel that way. Like many of the things I did in that period of my life, I look back and wonder what in the Sam Hill I thought I was thinking.
Someday maybe I'll elaborate, but I've already held this post in draft form for two days while I tried to come up with something useful to add to it. I guess all would add at this point is that I stayed in the "freedom from religion" stage longer than I might have thanks to some Baptists on my college campus who followed me around and made my life miserable - tossing disembodied Bible verses at me through the shower curtain while I showered, for instance. (I'm not making this up. The girls actually came into the dorm bathroom and recited meaning-stripped sentences from the Bible at me while I was trapped in the shower, dripping wet and sans clothes. This is not useful behavior, trust me.)
2 comments:
I'm Jewish and we celebrated Christmas. I think America did a very unique thing by turning Christmas into an essentially secular national holiday, that celebrates good will and the winter Solstice. I never felt marginalized by the fact that many around me brought a second, deeper meaning to Christmas. After all, for my second, deeper meaning, I had Hannukah! I hate to see Christmas so marginalized, because it still ranks in my mind as a lovely holiday at the darkest time of the year.
The ACLU's weird non-religious Puritanism certainly sucks all the joy out of life, doesn't it?
I didn't feel marginalized, either. People who wanted to have religious content to Christmas were free to do that, and we didn't care. To my mother, I think nativity scenes were quaint reminders of how primitive society used to be. I think they helped her feel that much more superior to believers, because she could look at them and feel smug about having moved beyond that (in her view).
She even let me go out Christmas caroling with my Christian friends. No harm done. It was just music, you see, and a chance to get paid in hot chocolate for serenading folks on their doorsteps.
Of course, that her daughter (that would be me) grew up to believe in God probably makes me a poster child for the ACLU's campaign about the dangers of Christmas displays ;-) - never mind that the displays had no effect on me, but my neighbors who personified something holy did.
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