Say 'Merry Christmas' while you still can

[Batgirl]

By Mark Steyn

One December a few years back, I was in Santa Claus, Indiana, and went to the Post Office - a popular destination thanks to its seasonal postmark.

"Merry Christmas!" I said provocatively.

But Postmistress Sandy Colyon was ready for me. "A week ago," she said, "I'd have had to say 'Happy Holidays', but we've been given a special dispensation from the Postmaster-General allowing us to say 'Merry Christmas'. So Merry Christmas!" That's "Christmas" at the dawn of the third millennium - a word you have to get a special memo from head office authorising the use thereof. In America, most executive honchos would rather not take the risk, instructing the staff to eschew any mention of the C-word in favour of "Happy Holidays!" - the all-purpose inoffensive greeting that covers Hannukah, Kwanzaa, Eid, the Third Wednesday after Ramadan, hippy-dippy solstice worship, West Bank Suicide Bomber Appreciation Day and any other festive occasion you've lined up for the general vicinity of late 2004/early 2005.

For US columnists, the end-of-year column bemoaning the fanatical efforts to expunge all Christmas traditions from public life has become an annual Christmas tradition in itself. This year, there's no shortage of contenders for silliest Santa suit. In one New Jersey school district, the annual trip to see Dickens's A Christmas Carol has been cancelled after threats of legal action. At another New Jersey school, the policy on not singing any songs mentioning God, Christ, angels, etc, has been expanded to prohibit instrumental performances of music that would mention God if any singers were around to sing the words. So you can't do Silent Night as a piano solo or Handel's Messiah even if you junk the hallelujahs.

But let's not obsess on New Jersey's litigious secularists. In Plano, Texas, in the heart of God-fearin' Bush country, parents were instructed not to bring red and green plates and napkins for the school's "winter" parties, as red and green are colours with strong Christmas connotations and thus culturally oppressive. In Massachusetts, in the heart of Bush-fearin' country, the mayor of Somerville issued an apology for accidentally referring to the town "holiday party" as a C-------- party.

Jesus, Mary and Joseph long ago got the heave-ho from the schoolhouse, but the great secular trinity of Santa, Rudolph and Frosty aren't faring much better. Frosty The Snowman and Jingle Bells are offensive to those of a non-Frosty or non-jingly persuasion: they're code for traditional notions of Christmas. The basic rule of thumb is: anything you enjoy singing will probably get you sued. At my little girl's school, the holiday concert is a mélange of multicultural dirges that are parcelled out entirely randomly: she seems to have got stuck with the H's - last year she wound up with a Hannukah song, this year she's landed some Hispanic thing; next year, no doubt, a traditional Hutu disembowelling chant. It would be offensive to inflict Deck the Halls or God Rest ye Merry Gentlemen on any hypothetical Hutu in attendance, but it's not offensive to inflict hot Hutu hits on bewildered moppets.

Philip Roth famously observed that, with Easter Parade and White Christmas, Irving Berlin had taken the two holidays that celebrate the divinity of Christ and "de-Christed" them both, turning Easter "into a fashion show and Christmas into a holiday about snow". But Berlin found an angle on Christmas that anyone can get into. The new school of "de-Christers" seems to deny the possibility of any common culture, so that the holiday concert winds up a celebration of hermetically sealed cultural ghettos.

And yet this year I'm disinclined to join in the general bemoaning. Flipping the dial on my car radio, I notice more stations than ever have been playing non-stop 24-hour "holiday music" for the month before C-day - not just Winter Wonderland and Jingle Bell Rock but Bing and Frank doing Go Tell it on the Mountain and Andy Williams singing O Holy Night. And not just the old guys, but all the current fellows, especially the country singers: Garth Brooks's new album - The Magic of Christmas - includes Let it Snow! Let it Snow! Let it Snow! but also Baby Jesus is Born and O Little Town of Bethlehem.

The seasonally litigious rest their fanatical devotion to the deChristification of Christmas on the separation of church and state. America's founders were opposed to the "establishment" of religion, whose meaning is clear enough to any Englishman: the new republic did not want President Washington serving simultaneously as Supreme Governor of the Church of America, or the Bishop of Virginia sitting in the US Senate. Two centuries on, these possibilities are so remote that the "separation" of church and state has dwindled down to threats of legal action over red-and-green party napkins.

But every time some sensitive flower pulls off a legal victory over the school board, who really wins? For the answer to that, look no further than last month's election results. Forty years of effort by the American Civil Liberties Union to eliminate God from the public square have led to a resurgent, evangelical and politicised Christianity in America. By "politicised", I don't mean that anyone who feels his kid should be allowed to sing Silent Night if he wants to is perforce a Republican, but only that year in, year out it becomes harder for such folks to support a secular Democratic Party closely allied with the anti-Christmas militants. American liberals need to rethink their priorities: what's more important? Winning a victory over the kindergarten teacher's holiday concert, or winning back Congress and the White House?

In Britain, by contrast, the formal symbols remain in place: the Queen is still Supreme Governor of the Church of England, and the Archbishop of York still sits in the House of Lords. But, underneath all that, Christianity has collapsed, the churches are empty and the new Europe is as officious about public expressions of faith but without the countervailing balance of America's First Amendment protections. In Italy this Christmas, towns and schools have banned public displays of the Nativity on the grounds that they "may" offend Muslims.

Maybe they do, maybe they don't. But who cares? The elevation of the right not to be offended into the bedrock principle of democratic society will, in the end, tear it apart. That goes for atheists threatening suits against New Jersey schools and for Muslim lobby groups threatening fatwas against The Telegraph. On which cheery note, Merry Christmas to all.

Telegraph

[66MP1]

MERRY CHRISTMAS TO ALL ON THIS BOARD,,,yes I put it in all caps and I meant it to be that way. That should explain my feelins on this issue.

[ColeGyreneJROTC]

Merry Christmas!

[phillyb24]

you've got to be kidding

MERRY CHRISTMAS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[AmericanGirl]

Merry Christmas to All, and if you don't like it, sue me, you can't get blood out of a stone so you will be waiting a long time for the money, and I'll keep saying it, Merry Christmas!!!! This is the end of the line, you don't mess with Christmas!

The shop I own I made sure that my sales banners all said "Merry Christmas" - to hell with the minority! I don't care if they get offended, didn't want their money anyway - heck, I am having a banner year anyway!

[Batgirl]

Merry Christmas!!

[Field_Sailor]

I will be saying it tell the day I die.

[Rusty24]

Same here Merry Christmas!

I was thinking to myself....like I do while I am waiting for aircraft to show up because they are always late and the ops desk doesn't know how to call so I can inform range control that.... anyway

If all of these "People/Individuals" have a problem with Christmas then lets do this. For those that believe in Christmas then let them celebrate it. For those that do not, the work week will be the same as any other time of the year. File a complaint about only saying "Happy Hollidays", then you are with them and you will see them working on the 24th and 25th.

MERRY CHRISTMAS!

[AngelBear]

^Good idea Rusty... (by the way I'm missing playing pool with you...)

I along with the rest ... it will always be "Merry Christmas" to me!!

[Codeman]

It will always be "MERRY CHRISTMAS" I never use Merry XMAS as it leaves the Christ out of CHRIST MAS !!

Ojenyunyat Sungwiyadeson homungradon nagwutut & Ojenyunyat osrasay! Iroquois -

Joyeux Noël et Bonne Année! French

Froehliche Weihnachten und ein glückliches Neues Jahr! German

Idah Saidan Wa Sanah Jadidah! Iraq

Buon Natale e Felice Anno Nuovo ! Italian