Let’s just stop all the games and instead of the war on Christmas let’s just establish an alternate holiday for them all to celebrate. We’ll call it Giftmas. I’ve seen that word mentioned a few times. In fact, if you Google it, there’s about 270,000 entries for “Giftmas.”
I could see some saying that in order to keep Christmas pure we’ll establish Giftmas.
It’ll look a lot like Christmas. They’ll be a tree and they can play all the songs we know and love like “Jingle Bells” and that Dan Fogelberg one where he gets his drink on in the car with an old flame that has somehow been misconstrued as a Christmas song. But it won’t be Christmas. It’ll just be Giftmas.
And you can say “Merry Giftmas” to anyone and everyone without fear of offending them by getting all your Jesus all over them.
And this isn’t just me. It seems the Governor of Rhode Island is on board.
Weasel Zippers reported:
Rhode Island’s governor is defending his decision to call the 17-foot blue spruce recently erected in the Statehouse a “holiday” tree rather than a “Christmas” tree.
Gov. Lincoln Chafee says the term “holiday” tree is in keeping with Rhode Island’s founding as a haven for religious tolerance where government and religion were kept separate.
Ha! In the name of religious tolerance we’re banning “Christmas!” You’ve gotta’ love it.
Of course, this isn’t a good idea but this kind of thinking is what gets us into trouble.
The reason we wouldn’t be on board for this is that Giftmas would harm Christmas, the same way that accepting the idea of civil unions harmed marriage. Remember when folks got on board with civil unions a few years back because it didn’t have the word “marriage.” But once folks accepted that, the next destination was full on acceptance of gay marriage. It’s a short trip from there.
Here’s the thing -the two can’t co-exist. The one harms the other. There’s no doubt about that. Just as civil unions hurt marriage, Giftmas harms Christmas.
It’s the secularizing of the sacred, the hollowing out of the holy that leaves only vacant facades.
And the more we allow Jesus to be forgotten in Christmas, we allow Giftmas to become a glittering and celebrated facade.
December 2, 2011 at 6:33 pm
I think an alternate holiday SHOULD be established. The key is to move it off of Dec 25. The new holiday would be simply what they already call it "Happy Holidays".
My proposal: December 18th every year will hereafter be known as Happy Holidays. The secularists want a non-religious holiday and to wish people “happy holiday,” so let’s actually have one. Since Christmas is 1 week before New Year’s, placing “Happy Holidays” 1 week before Christmas makes sense. Just as they do now, stores will start their happy holidays advertising around Halloween. People can go on hay rides, sing songs such as Jingle Bells, attend holiday parties, buy gifts they can’t afford for each other and anxiously await Santa’s arrival on Happy Holidays Eve (December 17th). Those of us who don’t care for this Happy Holidays nonsense can simply ignore it. Christmas, for all of us who care, will have its true meaning restored.
FWIW, I wrote about this last Christmas.
December 3, 2011 at 12:02 am
A Jewish writer I was reading had an interesting point, relating to the "Winter Holidays" nonsense: turning Hanukkah into Christmas for Jews is precisely missing the point of that festival, which is about Jews not copying Gentiles. Christmas is Christmas, and none of our "Holiday" traditions actually come from any other holiday, so pretending otherwise is disingenuous.
But I always like to point out, RE: the War on Christmas, imagine if Japan canceled its various Shinto festivals to be "considerate" of its Christian population (Japanese Christians make up about 2-3% of the country, which is about the percentage of America that isn't at least culturally Christian). And yes, Japan's constitution has a guarantee of religious liberty that, I think, is actually based on ours.
December 3, 2011 at 4:19 pm
It is just like BCE (Before the Common Era) instead of BC (Before Christ). They only reason why it is the common era is that it is before Christ! Whether they like or not "Giftmas" has it origins in Christmas.
December 3, 2011 at 9:19 pm
We reclaimed Christmas 2 years ago. We put up our tree on Christmas Eve and decorate our home. We celebrate the Birth of Our Lord all through January. Oh, and we don't do Santa Claus. We just let the secularists and materialists race around from before Thanksgiving to Christmas eve giving themselves anxiety and maxing their credit cards. We sit back during Advent and wait and pray. We celebrate with cookies and candy and gifts for a whole month. Our children really appreciate and it keeps them focused on Christ, generosity, charity, and our blessings. Let them have Giftmas….that's what it is to them anyway.
December 4, 2011 at 2:25 pm
"Merry Christmas" is such a simple, beautiful, hopeful, happy greeting. All year long Christians put up with secular nonsense and the continuing desecration of society. We are subjected to secular advertisement, entertainment and life styles everywhere we turn. Let Christians enjoy Merry Christmas and the Creche this time of the year without the complaining of those who would like to see us go away.
December 4, 2011 at 3:37 pm
This insistence by Christians that the existence of anything they don't authorize, harms them, is where all wars start. Be careful.
December 5, 2011 at 1:55 pm
This is where the Greek Church has it easy; with thier alternate Calendar they can have the full holiday ~after~ all the secular steamrolling of the Latin Church.
December 5, 2011 at 2:26 pm
They forgot that there is still an important Catholic root word in there–mas, as in Mass
December 8, 2011 at 9:01 pm
The image of the Grinch is significant. The whole point of the Grinch was that he could steal all the Whos' junk but he still didn't ruin Christmas for them as he couldn't steal their Christmas spirit. But it seems that with Giftmas, the gifts would be part and parcel to what makes up the "Giftmas spirit" (if one could assign a spirit to an idea as material as Giftmas). A remake – "The Grinch who Stole Giftmas" – would be interesting, in which the Grinch steals all the Whos' junk and Giftmas is definitively ruined for all.