Charles Milliken: The war on Christmas
Christmas has been falling on tough times lately — it just isn’t what it used to be when I was growing up. This is the result of a “war” on Christmas which has been successfully waged for decades. It is a strange type of war, I admit, often subtle and hidden, although occasionally becoming obvious. Given what a wonderful, glorious experience it was when I was a child, how could anyone want to be a grinch?
Christmas has had a checkered past in the United States. The pilgrims wanted nothing to do with it. They regarded it as a flimsy excuse for partying and other ungodly carryings-on. Fast forward to the Victorian era when Christmas, as I knew it, came into full flower. Christmas trees, "The Night Before Christmas," "A Christmas Carol," Christmas cards, and lots of other fun stuff came from the mid-19th century. A hundred years on, Hollywood put out such gems as "A Wonderful Life," "Miracle on 34th Street," and "Holiday Inn." Christmas movies for the past few decades are a very different animal. Many consider "Die Hard" to be a Christmas movie. That tells you all you need to know.
No TV series was complete without the annual Christmas show. One of the most moving was the 1952 Christmas episode of Amos and Andy. In my humble opinion, this was the best half-hour of television to appear on the small screen. The acting, the writing, and the portrayal of ”the true meaning of Christmas” are beyond superb. Amos and Andy has been banned from broadcast for many decades due to racial stereotyping. If there is any stereotyping in this episode, it is to show human beings nearly impossibly good.
There has always been the background noise of being shamed because of not living the “True Meaning of Christmas,” which is a pale throwback to the Puritans’ disdain. Too commercial! Too much emphasis on buying stuff! Too much eggnog! Bah! Humbug! I say. Once in a while — say once a year — some glorious excess is just what the doctor ordered. Just not too excessive.
Public schools have rid themselves of Christmas references. Too offensive. Who is offended, other than those imposing the ban, has never been clear to me. But then, it isn’t just Christmas anymore — we have a set of people whose mission in life is being offended, usually on behalf of others who they assert ought to be offended, but somehow aren’t. Greeting customers with “Merry Christmas” is similarly banned.
Underlying the overt attacks on Christmas are the underlying attacks on Christian belief. After all, Christmas is just a slightly shortened name for Christ’s Mass, the solemn celebration of the Savior’s birth for those who believe in the Savior. As the reigning philosophy of materialism and "science" constantly points out, there is nothing beyond physical reality and linked cause and effect. Nothing! There is no such thing as a “Savior,” or God, or anything else supernatural. Thus Christmas can have no meaning except a historical tradition as a good excuse for a party. That’s pretty thin gruel.
Christmas is also collateral damage on another war being waged by the left, and that is the war on the family. The heart and soul of Christmas when I grew up in a non-religious household was family. Mom, Dad, the kids, the grandparents, and all the trappings were what made Christmas something to look forward to all year. Back in the day, the great majority of adults aged 18 to 45 were married with children. Today, the majority are not married, and do not have children. The patriarchal family, as we now know, is evil. Women are oppressed. Natural desires by both men and women are suppressed, thus preventing life from being fully lived. Children are nothing but little carbon footprints about to destroy the planet. As they used to say in the old West, “This town ain’t big enough for both of us.”
As the family is chased out of town, so is Christmas.
— Charles Milliken is a professor emeritus after 22 years of teaching economics and related subjects at Siena Heights University. He can be reached at milliken.charles@gmail.com.
This article originally appeared on The Holland Sentinel: Charles Milliken: The war on Christmas
