Daily Meme: The Most Wonderful Time of the Year for Being Angry about Christmas

by

  • It's December, which means that the myriad opinions on Obama's leadership style will soon morph into much miffedness over our country's lamentable inability to appreciate Christmas enough.
  • The war might just be celebrating its centennial this year, according to an article from 1913 highlighting the Society for the Prevention of Useless Giving's crusade against Christmas spending.
  • Or was it the Puritans who started the war on Christmas?
  • Or, gasp, the Founding Fathers?!
  • Regardless of its inception, the war has burst into the 21st century on a glorious wave of brutish, short fuses and Christmas tree taxes.
  • Like the time a Nova Scotia logger who donated a tree to the city of Boston in 2005 said he'd rather shove the glorious conifer in a wood chipper than hear it be called a "holiday tree."
  • Or the time Mark Steyn said, "Perhaps Santa Monica should adopt a less theocratic moniker and change its name to Satan Monica, as its interpretation of the separation of church and state seems to have evolved into expressions of public contempt for large numbers of the citizenry augmented by the traumatizing of their children."
  • Or the time the American Spectator published that "Wishing someone a Merry Christmas is not hate speech. It is a good thing.'" Who said wishing someone Merry Christmas was hate speech again?
  • Or that time they brought Dennis Kucinich into this thing somehow.
  • Or the time Fox News sold a "O'Reilly Factor Holiday Ornament." Wait, what?
  • Conservative columnists have pulled out their favorite clichés and analogies to celebrate one of their favorite things to sprinkle with a bit of righteous indignation. Byron York, looking at the secular wasteland that covers the heartland, said in a post last week, "The United States is not East Germany. It's not close to being East Germany. And that is one reason why such efforts to politicize Thanksgiving, Hanukkah, birthdays, and more are especially unwelcome."
  • The National Republican Congressional Committee has many, many, many options available in their store if you would like to loudly announce-in Comic Sans!-that you "aren't afraid to say Merry Christmas."
  • For the bookish war on Christmas soldiers in your life, there is no better stocking stuffer than a Fox News contributor-penned missive on the "liberal plot to ban the Christian holiday."
  • In a town in Washington, yard signs saying "It's OK to Say Merry Christmas," are popping up all over.
  • The Daily Caller has an section tagged as "War on Christmas."
  • The American Family Association has their list of naughty and nice retailers. Companies against Christmas, according to their formula, include Victoria's Secret, Family Dollar, Barnes & Noble, and Pet Smart. Radio Shack is so bad they're trying to boycott the place.
  • Conservatives don't seem to have noticed that despite their fears, about 78 percent of Americans identify as Christian. Christmas doesn't seem to be in peril. But, as one commentator jokingly puts it, "Our gift to those on the other side will be not to tell them that we've surrendered. It gives them such pleasure every year to carry on about the war on Christmas that it would be downright Grinchy to tell them that they've won."

You can count on the Prospect, can we count on you?

There's no paywall here. Your donations power our newsroom as we report on ideas, politics and power — and what’s really at stake as we navigate another presidential election year. Please, become a member, or make a one-time donation, today. Thank you!