LOS ANGELES: It just doesn’t seem like Christmas this year — because there have been so few stories in the media about how the holiday is under siege by secular progressives. Some irony-deficient Chicago officials refused to allow advertising for “The Nativity Story” at the city’s annual Christkindlmarket, an open-air re-creation of a European village. And Seattle-Tacoma International Airport’s staff removed — then replaced — more than a dozen Christmas trees after a rabbi threatened to sue if a menorah wasn’t included in the display. But, by and large, it’s been a quiet season.
The Christmas wars were inescapable in 2005. The American Family Assn., a pro-family Christian group, led a boycott of Target because of its reputed refusal to use the word “Christmas” in its advertising and store promotions. Other Christian organisations criticised Macy’s and Wal-Mart for favouring the generic “Happy Holidays” greeting over “Merry Christmas.” (This year, the retailers returned to Christmas-specific language in their sales signs and promotions.) Fox News, CNN and MSNBC aired numerous stories about secularist grinches.
The salvos between politically correct busybodies and pious protesters in 2004 were equally intense. Denver prohibited a church group from participating in its annual Parade of Lights because it wanted to sing Christmas songs; a New Jersey high school barred its band from playing religious-themed Christmas music; a Kansas newspaper published a correction apologising for calling a Community Tree a Christmas Tree; and a priest got in trouble for telling kindergartners that Jesus — not Santa — was the reason for Christmas.
But the war on Christmas didn’t start in 2004 either. In fact, it’s been ebbing and flowing for centuries wherever Christianity is practiced — and especially in the United States. Debating how — or even whether — to celebrate Christmas seems to be one of Americans’ favourite pastimes.
Although commonly perceived as a secular versus religious debate, the earliest Christmas wars were interdenominational battles. —Dawn/The Los Angeles News Service
