My wife found this guide from the Babylonian Bee, a satirical Christian site. The guide advises violence and being obnoxious to win people over to saying “Merry Christmas” instead of “Happy Holidays,” or something. Anyway it is slightly funny, but it is a bit sacrilegious and it is definitely unpersuasive.
I wanted to write about almost as soon as she showed it to me, but I decided to check to see if it was a joke because too often, people react dramatically to jokes. I don’t like that, I don’t want to be like that; it’s silly.
Anyway, I do have a valid critique of this type of joke. To clarify, the folks who made this and share it have every right to and I don’t think they should be stopped, except perhaps by themselves. I simply want to offer another side to this whole “War on Christmas” concept. First off, Christmas wasn’t even a big deal until recently in America’s history and it mostly gained steam as a consumerist push from retailers. Second, Christians should reject the celebration of Christmas because of how steeped the traditions and ideas behind it are in paganism. The Church slapped a veneer of Christ on pagan feasts to basically goose its numbers by letting new inductees have their Eucharist wafer and eat it, too. Look it up folks, the origins of Christmas are about a god who sleeps with his mother… you know, sexually. That may also be the root for all the “Madonna and Child” imagery, but let’s ignore that for now. Third, you pushing Christmas or any aspect of your faith is unproductive and obnoxious. It gives fuel to your enemies and is like the Pride Parades and other, bold open pushes for accepting all sorts of “unchristian” things you lot rail against all the time.
One last thing, I celebrate Hanukkah, like my Lord and Savior did and I am not pushing it on y’all. Hanukkah is about rejecting assimilation and unfortunately, Christmas is like an assimilation machine. Well-intentioned, and ill-informed attempts to include me and my family into your pagan feasts runs 100% contrary to the spirit of Hanukkah and the mission of that guy you say you want to be like.
MJ Muñoz 