The War on Christmas is Over
MAGA people have been a little stressed lately over how the witch hunts are going, but at least they can breathe easier that one war against the woke has been declared won.
We brought back ‘Merry Christmas’. Nobody fights it anymore.
Donald Trump – October 3, 2023 at a campaign stop in Ottumwa, Iowa
One of the first things I said in 2015, actually, when I was campaigning, I said ‘We will bring back ‘Merry Christmas’. Because these woke department stores, they didn’t want to use the word Christmas. And they use the word Christmas now.
Phew, right? Decades spent defending Christmas and, finally, it’s won! A stoic leader, despite being hampered by his medically diagnosed bone spurs, led his troops against the woke system and prevailed.
Puritans Really Didn’t Like Christmas
Some Puritans considered Ecclesiastical courts corrupt and objected to their rulings. The king headed both church and state, so any objection to the authority of the Ecclesiastical courts was considered an objection to the state.
Puritans were testy with Catholicism making inroads in England, bringing what they considered loosey goosey views of Christianity. They wanted the role of their religion to be tightened up.
A person living in this house had a relative who scratched his name on the wall of his prison cell in the Tower of London in 1554. It’s still there, you could go look at it if I gave you the name and you asked a Beefeater where it is. It was scratched into the wall just prior to him being hung, emasculated, beheaded, disemboweled, and having his limbs removed. Yes, all of that, it was quite a gore fest. The head ended up on a pike on Tower Bridge, his limbs made separate tours of England, and we’re unsure where the “emasculated” part(s) ended up.
The moral of the personal anecdote is that a king doesn’t take objections lightly. Everybody knew that, so a small group of about 100 Puritans left for the Netherlands in 1608. Life wasn’t great in Holland either for the Puritans. For example, they were concerned the local kids were corrupting their kids. So, a few of them boarded the Mayflower headed for Southampton, England to pick up some stuff including some backing from an English merchant and a patent to settle in Virginia.
Other ‘non-separatist’ Puritans and some servants joined them aboard. Including the crew of 30, 102 people set sail from Southampton headed for the Hudson River on September 6, 1620.
Meanwhile Plenty of Puritans Remained in England
Puritan members of Parliament were peeved Christmas festivities interrupting their religious observance of the birth of Christ. Because of that they passed an ordinance in December, 1643 to encourage subjects to treat the mid-winter period more solemnly. The ordinance pointed out subjects were giving it a black eye in part ‘by giving liberty to carnal and sensual delights’.
Oh, my!
Pilgrims – The First Illegal Immigrants
Ironically, the people celebrated as the founders of America entered the country illegally.
The Pilgrims first landed on the tip of Cape Cod, on December 10, 1620 after a rough couple months crossing the north Atlantic. That is nowhere near their intended landing in the Hudson River in what was then Virginia. They had no right to settle outside the Virginia Colony. They decided to stay in the area rather than sail a few days down the coast.
It sounds as if the Pilgrims had no clue what winter would be like sailing against prevailing winds in the North Atlantic and they were sick of sailing the Mayflower. Instead, on nice they cruised around the area until they found a nice place in what is now Plymouth harbor.
The Original Dreamers
The Pilgrims had no idea ALL their existing kids would be “dreamers” while the new ones were “anchor babies”.
The Native Americans were simultaneously conceiving “replacement theory”.
Christmas Banned In Boston
The pilgrims didn’t lighten up too much even after some fresh blood was imported from England and they pushed the natives out.
The Puritans in Boston made it illegal to celebrate Christmas. Degenerates caught doing so would be subject to a five shilling fine.
This was not a short-lived regulation, either. People celebrating Christmas were subject to a fine 1659 to 1681. We’re not sure how St. Patrick’s Day was handled.
Modernized War on Christmas
The Nazi’s also took their shot at Christmas. They were bigger party animals than the Puritans, so they didn’t mind celebrations. They weren’t fans of religion, though. Their goal was to eliminate religion itself from Christmas celebrations. While the Nazi ideology faded back to embers, the results of their attack on the religious component of Christmas never faded away completely.
George W Bush was woke
When President George W. Bush sent out the official White House Christmas cards in 2005,they were NOT inscribed “Merry Christmas”. Some of the public howled, (perhaps some remaining Pilgrims?), despite the inclusion of a Psalm.
The Lord is my strength and my shield;
in him my heart trusts;
so I am helped, and my heart exults,
and with my song I give thanks to him.
Psalm 28:7 (RSV)
With best wished for a holiday season of hope and happiness.
2005
It should be noted Dwight Eisenhower sent similarly worded White House Christmas cards. So did John Kennedy, Lyndon Johnson, Ronald Reagan and Bill Clinton.
So, why did Bush get more heat for being more inclusive of the many people of different religions and ideologies?
Far Right Pot Stirrers
Henry Ford was a notorious American bigot and a pal of Adolf Hitler. Like Hitler, Ford made no secret of his feelings. Henry even published an infamous compendium of his hate.
Not only do the Jews disagree with Christian teaching — which is their perfect right, and no one dare question it — but they seek to interfere with it. It is not religious tolerance in the midst of religious difference, but religious attack that they preach and practice. The whole record of Jewish opposition to Christmas, Easter and certain patriotic songs shows that.
Henry Ford – The International Jew: The World’s Foremost Problem
The John Birch Society also bemoaned the war on Christmas back in 1959 with a pamphlet entitled “There Goes Christmas?!” Their target was the United Nations. The pamphlet excoriated the UN for weakening Christmas by promoting celebrations of other cultures of, ya know, other nations. Their hollering didn’t have much effect.
Peter Brimelow was an anti-immigration guy who was too radical for the National Review, So Brimelow published a website to get his opinion out into the world. In 1999, Brimelow began his bemoaning of his War on Christmas when the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) threw a holiday party. Rather than be exclusive of many HUD clients, they named the party “A Celebration of Holiday Traditions.”
There are other examples, all similarly worded and targeted.
Fox News and The War on Christmas
Fox News anchor John Gibson published a book titled “The War on Christmas: How the Liberal Plot to Ban the Sacred Christian Holiday Is Worse Than You Thought” and then used the Fox News media outlet to push his book and his message.
Fox News would never leave a war like this alone. Fox jumped in with both feet when Gibson joined his pal Bill on air to push the book.
Bill O’Reilly began running a regular segment called “Christmas Under Siege” in December, 2004. Before Bill was fired from Fox and eventually settled the charge of harassment, he was a major player in originating conservative hollering points.
Secular progressives realize that America as it is now will never approve of gay marriage, partial birth abortion, euthanasia, legalized drugs, income redistribution through taxation, and many other progressive visions because of religious opposition.
But if the secularists can destroy religion in the public arena, the brave new progressive world is a possibility. That’s what happened in Canada.
Bill O’Reilly – Christmas Under Siege
There’s more from Bill that clarifies his position and that of the organization employing him until Bill’s penchants for bad behavior were too public for even Fox to handle.
I think it’s all part of the secular progressive agenda…to get Christianity and spirituality out of the public square. Because if you look at what happened in Western Europe and Canada, if you can get religion out, then you can pass secular progressive programs like legalization of narcotics, euthanasia, abortion at will, gay marriage.
Bill O’Reilly – November 18, 2005
Fox News blanketly and loudly objects to anything with a whiff of liberalism. Those objections are profitable because they add ammunition to the culture war they promote. That was part of the agenda in 2005, and it remains so today.
It’s a One Way Culture War
America is famously a melting pot of different cultures, it’s woven into the fiber of our strength. There’s no organized effort to impinge on anyone’s right to celebrate Christmas if they choose.
The only reason for professing the existence of a War on Christmas is cultural. It forces a binary choice that’s revelatory of biases of anyone buying or selling that narrative.
The war on Christmas is a war being fought by only one side, and it’s not the side of the “Happy Holidays” people. It’s just one more bit of the culture war kept alive solely to fire the emotions of people for power and profit.
The Founding Fathers Weighed In Already
Objecting to removing religious components from government is the American way.
I contemplate with sovereign reverence that act of the whole American people which declared that their legislature should “make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof,” thus building a wall of separation between Church & State.
Thomas Jefferson – January 1, 1802 – Letter to the Danbury Baptists
It’s too large a subject for this already overlong piece, but Thomas Jefferson was adamant church and state must remain separate in every way. There is ample written evidence for that statement and, further, that most other people regarded as “founding fathers” were just as stolid in the same belief.
We should all be willing to acknowledge your fellow Americans deserve as much respect for their culture as you do for yours if you demand every person accept “Merry Christmas” and religious imagery displayed in shared spaces without objection.
It’s not a war. We can, instead, celebrate this time of year by respecting each other and being grateful for the bounties afforded us. Those bounties are the result of the work and care of a mix of cultures, each of which is deserving of respect.
Research and Supporting Information
- 1620: Who Were the Puritans? – VOA News
- When Boston Banned Christmas – Harvard Divinity School
- The Nazis Fought the Original War on Christmas – Smithsonian Magazine
- The fabricated war on Christmas – SFGATE
- Bush ‘Holiday’ Cards Cause Stir – CBS News
- The War of Words behind ‘Happy Holidays’ – History
- A Short History of the War on Christmas – Politico
- How the secular humanist grinch didn’t steal Christmas – Salon.com
- How Fox News Created the War on Christmas – Harvard Business Review
- Jefferson’s Letter to the Danbury Baptists – U.S Library of Congress