17 November 2005

Ahh, The Holidays

Wal-Mart is now being labeled "most wanted" in the Christmas / Holiday feud. I will get to the feud itself in just a moment but the following is a possible solution for Wal-Mart.

Wal-Mart Stores, Inc

**MEDIA ADVISORY** **FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE**

Wal-Mart fully respects that in a time of war, rising energy costs, natural disasters, and world-wide terrorism, we as a people are still able to focus on matters of such great import.

Although we don't necessarily object to being mentioned on cable news every day, we are dedicated to resolving the B2C greeting conundrum during the Christmas / Holiday season.

Because litigation against large companies is now a career option, we would like to avoid being sued over semantics. Effective immediately Wal-Mart will post the following in all of its stores.

Thank you for shopping Wal-Mart and please register your greeting of choice by wearing one of the following stickers we have provided. Please note: If your sticker is not clearly visible, Wal-Mart will not claim responsibility for any incorrect or offensive greeting.

Welcome to Wal-Mart, Merry Christmas
Welcome to Wal-Mart, Happy Holidays
Welcome to Wal-Mart, Happy Hanukkah
Welcome to Wal-Mart, Happy Kwanzaa
OR
Holiday Shmoliday...don't smile and greet me with anything, I'm only here to save 5 bucks on a 2 quart Crock-Pot.

Register today and win a free Sam Walton Bobblehead * (subject to availability)

###

Now, I would like all of you bickering brats to sit down and listen to me for a few minutes. You know you are one of the bickering brats if you have EVER said "Hijacking Christmas", "War against Christmas", "the word Christmas is offensive" or if you have EVER even entertained the notion of banning the colors red and green.

Ok, do I have your attention? NO Bill, you sit back down and just shush up. If you don't want me to treat you like a two year old, then don't act like one. Now...all of you, your silly and embarrassing behavior will not be tolerated any more. I am going to explain this once and then I expect you all to drop this nonsense.

In this country we acknowledge and honor many holidays. November December and January have always been considered our holiday season as several of our religious holidays fall in this period. NO Bill, there is more than one religion, hence more than one religious holiday. I won't tell you again to be quiet. Now, where was I...ah yes, our religious holidays. Here are some of the wonderful celebrations we look forward to during our season.

November 1 All Saints Day (Roman Catholic, Protestant, Lutheran)
November 3 or 4 Eid El Fitr (End of Ramadan) (Islamic) [Date is approximate with sighting of the moon]
November 12 Birth of the Baha'u'llah (Baha'i)
December 8 Feast of the Immaculate Conception (Roman Catholic)
December 25 Christmas (Roman Catholic, Protestant, Eastern, Greek and Russian Orthodox)
December 26 First Day of Hanukkah (Jewish)
December 26 -January 2 Kwanzaa
January 1 New Year's Day (not a religious holiday but I assume there will never be a debate that January 1st is indeed the first day of a new year)
January 2 Eighth Day of Hanukkah (Jewish)
January 6 Feast of the Epiphany (Roman Catholic, Eastern, Greek and Russian Orthodox)

Isn't that spectacular. Such beautiful harmony in diversity. Only in America. How fortunate we are indeed.

Let me tell you a short little story. When I was a young teenager, my mother was the editor of a local newspaper. I used to help her with her business Christmas Cards. She told me we needed to find cards that said "Happy Holidays". (Isn't this a great story so far kids? Here comes the good part) I say "how come?". "Because", she says "Not everyone's holiday is Christmas". "Well yeah, but it is still Christmas". "Of course it is Christmas, but would you give a birthday card to your father on my birthday?" "No". "Exactly, so we can either take this list of 150 people and find out the particular holiday they celebrate or we can make it easier and be polite and get "Happy Holiday" cards for all of them". Kids, it was as simple as that. And that is when I understood, especially when addressing a large group, it is simply a consideration - a polite thing to do - to use "Happy Holidays". Finding that to be, in any way, an attack on or the willful oppression of Christians would be....well....stupid, right? Yes. And it turns out, my mother (brilliant as she was) did not dream up that little ditty on her own. No, most everyone will whip out the "Happy Holidays" line as a way of sending their holiday wishes to someone regardless of their faith or religious celebration.

I would ask if there are any questions so far but I am frankly so sick of listening to you all and I have the floor until you can come to your senses.

Now to those of you on the other side of this bickering. Let me start by saying that we will be purchasing a small island for the Plano Independent School District in Texas. They will be forced to reside there and it will be named Land of The Profoundly Stupid With Entirely Too Much Time On Their Hands or "LOPS Island". Some of Plano's actions that led to this decision include a ban on candy cane distribution when a religious card is attached, a ban on parents giving religious-oriented items to one another on school property and banning the colors red and green from a "Winter Break Party," requiring parents to bring only white plates and napkins. Kids, remember when I said a few minutes ago that Christmas WAS one of the holidays in our holiday season? For those of you who are not Christians, you will not burn to a cinder at the sight of a cross, Christmas tree or at hearing the word "Christmas". (And if you do burn to a cinder...well then you had a bigger problem than acting stupid and silly).

We can all freely celebrate our holidays...all of them. We can acknowledge them, learn from them, appreciate the beauty and history in them, see and enjoy symbols of them around us and respect them. This bickering is only about trying to push someone over saying "my way is the only way". Sorry, it doesn't work like that in this country.

Now, if I hear one more peep out of any of you with this ridiculous stupidity, you will be shipped off to LOPS Island before you can say... [insert greeting of choice here].



18 comments:

Ken Grandlund said...

Getting a jump on the season I see. Really enjoyed this post- the humor way dead on and the point is well taken. Instead of finding things to be offended by, people need to get off their imaginary high-horses and actually try to get a life. Sad that they have to try to control everyone else, isn't it.

Anonymous said...

I was in Walmart two days ago (against my better judgement) and heard Joy to the World blaring over the PA system...

I hate that stupid song.. and I haven't even had my Turkey yet

Unknown said...

Found your blog via Ken's Common Sense - looks like he beat me here. I had a good laugh over this one. Point is well taken. Meanwhile, we all must survive the second holiday in this season of festiveness, Thanksgiving. Halloween being the first.

So, I started a little compendium over at my location I call the "Left Leaning Blogger's Thanksgiving Tool Kit." The idea is to have folks comment and offer advice on how to stick it to those annoying reicwingers you have to hang out with, simply because they are family. Readers of this blog may want to view it or add their two cents. The more folks who comment the better the tool box is.

Blog on all.

Deb said...

This was an amazing post! I love your style of writing. I saw you on the BE site, and wanted to just pop in and say hello!

Fellow 'sister' here... :)

Anonymous said...

Peep.

Well said, nice to read.

We can enjoy all the holidays of everyone; or enjoy the company of those that hate them.

There are more than just two sides, there are dozens of blockheads each shouting without listening.

If someone wants to listen, share; if not, smile.

Peep, and peep again.

Unknown said...

{Take a bow and a major round of applause}

Most awesome post and?

Happy Holidays!

:-)

John McAdams said...

How this plays out on radio in Milwaukee:

Religious Christmas Songs Banned on Milwaukee "Oldies" Radio Station.

Anonymous said...

There is also the Pagan Holiday of Yule in that space of time. :)

Gary said...

Hmmmm, good rant, and creatively written too. Tell your mother she's one smart woman.

As for me, I don't care much for religions, but enjoy the Christmas trappings (including the roast bird). I have enjoyed Puri in India, Purim in Israel and Ramadan breakfasts in Sudan too. Come to think of it, it's the food in each case that I remember.

animeg said...

A good post- although as an atheist, I don't mind people going all out for Xmas in their private domain, but it's a bit much to expect schoolkids to all do a nativity play in a public school or all sing only religious Christmas songs, and none of the other ones.

Also, a pet peeve- Mother's Day, Labor Day, Veteran's Day, and even Christmas(the holiday I celebrate) aren't real holidays either. All of them were invented to remember ideas and people who we respect. We all know that Jesus was probably not born Dec 25th, but we(Christians, and nominal celebraters) think of him on that day.

Anonymous said...

Working in an office where the first person to send out Christmas cards was a muslim and as a "trained" equality and diversity advisor I love to read about how stupid people think this "holiday season" rubbish is.

Over here in the UK a lot of non-christian (hindu, muslim, etc) people celebrate christmas because it is part of our culture and a fun thing to do not because it is forced on them because

Oh and I know I am being picky, but Orthodox x-mas is on the 7th January not the 25th December

;)

gwojtowy said...

What I really didn't like about O'Reilly's little "Christmas War" wasn't just that he tried to make us progressives look like the Grinch, but that in being forced to defend our image, we had to waste precious mental energy on a given, and not on the un-Christmaslike behavior of Bush & Co. By the way, thank you for adding a link to my blog on yours. May i do the same with yours?

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gwojtowy said...

Well said!

This whole idiocy exposes the totaltitarian mindedness of either extreme on the political spectrum. i still remember the bad old days of "political correctness," (Buchanan was right for once to coin that term) but that doesn't make Bill O'Reilly any more right. At the risk of tooting my own horn, may I refer you to something I wrote on my blog:

http://wazdat.blogspot.com/2005/12/great-defence-of-christmas.html

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