Tis the season when numbers of Americans rage against the War on Christmas.
While anyone who enters a Home Depot the day before Halloween should be able to tell you, the evidence of such a war as glaringly absent (can something be glaringly absent?), every year, social media feeds fill with memes proclaiming boldly (and rather rebelliously), “I will say ‘Merry Christmas’ damnit and no one can stop me!” I often wonder how many times the posters and sharers have actually been chastised for saying “Christmas.”
This is just another in the long list of lies spread at lightening speed via the world wide web designed to pit Americans against one another. And it works. Why are we so quick to believe that our neighbors are maliciously against our way of life (don’t answer that LGBTQ+ friends 🙁 )?
I know people will cite a handful of government buildings that erected nativity scenes on their lawns only to have public backlash result in their removal. That’s not a war on Christmas. That’s respecting the separation of church and state. I’m pretty sure that a few people would take issue with having to walk by a giant, blow-up menorah or a monolithic representation of the Quran on their way to finalize their divorce.
In any case, if there is a war on Christmas, it is failing. Each year, over 2 billion Christmas cards are mailed (85% by women!) and about 500 million e-Christmas cards are exchanged. 61% of greeting card sales are Christmas cards and 53% of those say “Merry Christmas.” Not a very successful war when over one billion pieces of card stock include the taboo phrase, is it? How about this year we dispense with the “war on anything that annoys us” business and embrace the season in the spirit it was meant to conjure (or there I go with a Wicca reference — she’s a witch!!)?
MERRY CHRISTMAS