A Bit of a Christmas Rant

I got a news item in my email the other day from Canoe.ca.  I get them daily, a list of articles that are of importance, headlines, you probably know the type of thing.

Anyhow, one of the articles was to do with a city in Saskatchewan turning down a request to remove “Merry Christmas” from city busses.

So who was the heinous group of terrorists and infidels or those godless types that wanted the Merry Christmas removed from the busses?

One guy.

One guy sent the city a letter complaining that it bothered him, that it was offensive. And it goes out as national news.

Says a lot for our “National News” people doesn’t it?

Lately I’ve seen some signs going up too, on lawns throughout the area. “Christmas is about Christ” is the message. Maybe it used to be.

This seems to be part and parcel of the so called “War on Christmas” we keep hearing about.  Political Correctness run amok. The atheists and the infidels are trying to destroy our way of life!

No.

I’m sure that the non Christians enjoy the time off work, or the premium pay if they get stuck working the Christmas shift and I don’t think it bothers them that people seem to be a bit nicer to each other, even if it is just for a couple of weeks prior to Christmas.  After all, Santa IS watching, isn’t he?

Look, it doesn’t bother me to have someone say Merry Christmas. It doesn’t bother me to have someone say “Season’s Greetings” or “Happy Holidays” either. It is the Christmas season that I’m being greeted with, holiday is an old word from the combining of “Holy” and “Day”. If these things bother you, get over it.

Maybe it should bother you that the “Christmas Season” starts off with something called “Black Friday”.

Seriously, there has been a War on Christmas, and it has been going on a long time. It is not the non Christians and non Believers you have to worry about, it is the businessmen.

How many of you have read “A Christmas Carol” or at least seen the movies?  Did you even notice that Bob Cratchit has to ASK to have a day off to celebrate Christmas with his family?

Back then, Christmas was a rural holiday. To the industrialists and businessmen it was a bother and a pest, a humbug if you will, to give people time off during the work week for a church holiday. Most of the workers back then were still moving from the countryside to the cities in search of work, and this Christmas day off was just a remnant of country life, nothing to do with the city, and nothing to do with business.

And it is still happening today. This year Wal-Mart tried to get the jump on the competition by starting their Black Friday sales on Thursday evening. Thanksgiving evening. There was a lot of push back, but not nearly enough, Wal-Mart went ahead anyway.

You see Thanksgiving is a big deal in the USA, they even have holiday specials on TV for it. The rants on the news sites were all blown away with comments like “IF you don’t want to work on Holidays, don’t work at Wal-Mart”. Curiously, I’ve never thought of Wal-Mart as a career choice. Even more curiously, if you use that argument about not joining a union they get real cranky, but that’s another rant.

If you think that Wal-Mart and Target and the other big retailers haven’t considered opening on Christmas, you have been asleep. The only reason they close and stay closed for Christmas is that they are scared that the fallout will be too hard to handle for too long.

We’re dealing with people who think God only comes before Greed in the dictionary. The bottom line is the only one that matters. Not you, not your family, only profits.

Do you think Target cares that they ousted thousands of employees when they bought Zellers? Some of these people were working full time (Gasp!), some were making more than minimum wage (Gasp!!!), but that is not the Target way. Here in Chatham, 

they just closed the Zellers up, 9 days before Christmas.

Season’s Greetings from Target! Don’t let the door hit you on the way out.

If you need to be upset about something, don’t waste your time on “Season’s Greetings” and whatnot, be upset about something that matters…

Like folks who get Christmas dinner at the soup kitchen.

Like people getting their Christmas cooking supplies from a Food Bank or a Salvation Army basket.

Like the kids who’ll only get one toy this Christmas because of a charity like the Good Fellows who made sure that they got one.

These people didn’t ask to be put in this position. Many of these people used to give to these same charities that they now find themselves receiving help from.

Maybe the guy in Saskatchewan is right. Maybe it is offensive to put Merry Christmas on the busses, maybe we should put it somewhere else, like in our hearts.

I hope this Christmas season finds you all well, and I hope that you will be able to enjoy time with your friends and loved ones. Maybe this year we can figure out that the best way to celebrate Christmas is not to be nice for a couple of weeks or a month, but to be nice to each other the whole year round.

Yeah, kind of sappy, but after all, it is Christmas.

 Glædelig jul!  BC