"Holiday" v.s "Christmas"

Here I sit with a cup of Earl Grey (love that scent!), and read about the controversy over Wal-Mart's use of "Holidays" instead of "Christmas". I have thoughts on the matter, and since I had started out my Christmas letter with a joke regarding the topic, I wanted to clarify that it was indeed intended as a humor. Humor that also reflects my beliefs. But we all know that sometimes what is written is not always perceived upon reading in the same light of which it was written, so it may be misunderstood. Not that anyone has commented to me about it, I just know that is the case. We all have been on one end or the other of misunderstanding, if not both ends.

So with that said, I now wish to express my perspective on the situation because, well, this is my blog and I can opinionate if I want to! (There really needs to be smileys on blogs, lol).

I think this controversy, like many things, is getting blown out of proportion. I think we Christians need to pick our fights better. However I do think those protesting the merchants' advertising are doing us a service by reminding us of what we supposedly claim as a society is important to us.

Yes, I do have a problem with "Christmas" being removed from Christmas, and this is nothing new, and something we have been working against for quite sometime now. Now if Wal-Mart is refusing to put the word "Christmas" anywhere in their advertising, then yes, I have a problem with that. But the fact remains that before Christmas was started, there was Hanukkah. So if we follow this line of thinking that "Christmas" should be addressed by all during this season because it originated it, then the Jewish community has some very viable complaints against society now. We cannot deny that this season is celebrated in many ways by many people.

However if people chose to celebrate it with adorned trees and Santa Claus, then yes, they should remember why we have these traditions. And that is because of Christmas, with direct connections to Christendom and it's celebration of Jesus' birth.

Now there are those who will say that the Christmas tree originated with pagan celebrations. That may or may not be true, I will not express my opinion on that yet for I would have to do more research to study into it, and personally it is not so important to me to argue about (refer to my above statement about picking your fights), for I feel that there are more important issues at hand to spend my precious time on researching. However I challenge anyone to claim that if it were not for the Christian tradition of the Christmas Tree, a tradition of a decorated pagan winter tree would have survived through today. No, rather it would have, like many of the pagan traditions, been lost to us. Or at best, be celebrated by a minority, which I think would be a reaching argument. And if celebrated by a minority, it would only have been celebrated by regeneration, not continuation.
Now maybe Martha Stewart would have started the tradition up again if it had been dropped, but let's not go there.

Let us recognize that we share this holiday season with many. But this is not to mean that society should bully us into not proclaiming our joy about Christmas and it's true meaning, just like we should not bully any other group about proclaiming their joy about their celebration of this time of year. After all we are supposedly a Christian majority in this society and that should be reflected by all aspects of society. We should not be shoved into a corner just because not everyone shares our beliefs, for doing so would be giving an image of society which is not true.
Having the majority and minority's celebrations reflected by society proportionately is not discrimination.

Forcing any group to 'sit down and shut up' is discrimination. Sometimes it is good to discriminate for the good of society. Discrimination in itself is not a bad thing...it is how it is applied. However the lack of discrimination, in it's true meaning, is a bad thing. For instance, we discriminate against criminals by locking them up. So too any group that holds to the belief that a certain sect of humanity should be destroyed or does not have the right to live is a group that I think we all can agree on should be discriminated against...after hearing their arguments in a controlled setting. It is good to educate and get the full story. But this is not the topic at hand. The topic at hand is the celebration of a holiday season and how it is reflected by our merchants. Not so serious really. It really should not be an issue.

We should be allowed to share our beliefs like and with others. So if Wal-Mart wants to wish everyone a Happy "Holiday" by advertising "Home for the Holidays" to include Thanksgiving (as is their claim), let them, as long as they acknowledge that Christmas is a humongous part of that holiday season.

And that is my opinion on my blog.
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