The Nose: Perry's Ad, The War On Christmas, & The Word Of The Year
We nominated "**#&$@lmnop" to be the word of the year, but no luck.
Last year, while filing in to a holiday party, I overheard a woman grumbling about how much she dislikes having people in stores greet her with something neutral like "Happy Holidays."
"I let'em know!" she snarled. "It's Merry Christmas."
I didn't say anything. But how merry can you be with that chip on your shoulder? Look. There's no war against Christmas. There's just a mild movement toward... consideration. We aren't all Christians. We don't all celebrate the same things. So there may be some occasions where it makes sense to consider the possibility that the person you're addressing might not be a Merry Christmas person.
And the petulance directed at the Rhode Island governor who invited people to view a "holiday tree" seems especially over-wrought. It twinkles like a Christmas tree. It quacks like a Christmas tree. You got your Christmas tree. Calling it something else is mere politeness.
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EMAIL FROM KEVIN:
I called in today but never got to speak with you or the panel. I wanted to email with 2 brief points.
One caller phoned in from Long Island and mentioned that writing "Xmas" was really kicking it old school (his words, not mine) because the X was really the Greek letter Chi, which was the first letter of Christ. His comment was along the line that this was a well accepted practice in years gone by. Strictly speaking, he is incorrect. The correct abbreviation for Christ would have been XR (Chi Rho). These were the first two letters of the word Christ (in Greek). No one in, say, medieval times would have just used the Chi as an abbreviation for Christ. As evidence, you can look at traditional Catholic religious vestments, as shown below (the addition of the alpha and omega are there for fairly obvious reasons). I don't know the actual etymology of the expression "Xmas"; I suspect its origins are murky. It may, in fact, be an attempt to simply shorten Christmas down or it may be just another part of a diabolical war on Christmas (kidding!) ... but if it's the former, it's not strictly correct. I'm not one of those who insist on people wishing me a Merry Christmas (though I generally prefer it) ... I'm just anal-retentive.
Second, I can't believe you discussed "holiday trees" (vs. Christmas trees) but never mentioned the holiday of Festivus or the aluminum festivus pole (a la Seinfeld).
Have a good weekend. And Happy Holidays!
EMAIL FROM SARA:
Shall I preach to the choir? We all know that the shortest day of the year is around December 21. The winter solstice is followed by as a period of darkness where we hover, gaining immeasurable levels of light back for about 12 days and then we have that epiphany. During the dark time every culture had some sort of celebration of light or miracle the resulted in the birth of the sun or son depending on where you fall on the battlefield against or for the war on Christmas. Oh dear lord, I just heard ya'll play the Perry clip. Are you sure Stephen Colbert isn't using his superpac money to fund this? Well, anyways, this time of year we all just getting drunk, revealing and celelbrating any light we can find. At least the popular DVD of the buring Yule Log and the on-demand footage of a fireplace is back. I've been playing this on my giant TV all the time. I've even taken to recording any footage I miss during the day on my DVR. Forget Homeland-the Yule Log on demand keeps me in suspense and entertained until the epiphany sets me free.
EMAIL FROM BOB:
We have a wide variety of religious views in our office. Therefore, we have christened this time of the year
“THE CELEBRATION OF THE WINTER SOLSTICE SHOPPING SEASON”
EMAIL FROM CHERYL:
Christmas trees were a pagan symbol adopted by the early Christians
to incorporate the pagans into Christianity, so what's the big deal.
Anyone should be able to appreciate a holiday tree. It's up to each
person which holiday!
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