Tag Archives: war on Christmas

media news

No ‘war on Christmas’

Bill O’Reilly is still off the air, which makes me happy in that I won’t have to listen to the blowhard lament the so-called Liberal Media War on Christmas.

The war has never existed. It never will. O’Reilly used his Fox Propaganda Network platform to declare regularly that the media sought to rid society of Christmas references, apparently because the media comprise — in O’Reilly’s view — godless heathens who dismiss the religious significance of the holiday.

That ain’t true. Neither is the media’s war on the holiday true.

The only “enemy” of the spirit of Christmas lies within the corporate executives of the companies that profit from all the gift-buying that occurs between the day after Christmas and New Year’s Day.

And do you remember when Donald Trump declared his intention in 2016 to make businesses wish customers a Merry Christmas? That was a singularly stupid proclamation, given that a president has no legal authority to issue such an order.

So, the Christmas buying season is upon us. Millions of Americans will put up their Christmas trees, decorate their homes with Santa, Rudolph, Mrs. Claus, elves and, yes, Nativity Scenes to commemorate the holiday.

There will be no war on Christmas!

economic news

Nothing wrong with ‘happy holidays’ greeting

Our annual holiday season is upon us. Thanksgiving has come and gone, the shopping frenzy has begun and many of are starting to stress out — already! — about getting the Christmas decorations put up and welcoming guests home for the festivities.

There was a time when a presidential candidate, Republican Donald J. Trump, promised to “require businesses” to wish everyone a Merry Christmas. You remember that, right?

Well, a president has no authority to issue such an order. Frankly, I want to offer a brief word in support of those wish me a “Happy Holidays.”

Here’s the thing. We meet total strangers at the store. We buy whatever it is we’re seeking. The person standing at the computerized machine (which used to be called “cash registers”) doesn’t know if we’re Christian, Jew, Muslim, Buddhist or Wiccan, right?

I have never one time taken offense at a stranger offering a generic holiday greeting to me. Furthermore, I do not understand why anyone would take offense … let alone a one-time presidential candidate who I hasten to add has zero appreciation for why Christians celebrate Christmas.

With that, I’ll offer a happy holiday greeting to readers of this blog. It’s going to be a lively and joyful season.

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

national news

Hoping we can declare ‘ceasefire’ in phony war against Christmas

Donald Trump vowed when he ran for president that he would ensure that business employees wish their customers a “Merry Christmas,” as if he had the authority to issue such a mandate.

Well, he got elected, of course, and he has kept up the “Merry Christmas” mantra during his time in office. Never mind, naturally, that many millions of Americans don’t celebrate Christmas. Why? They are of different faiths, but that doesn’t faze the president even though he was elected to represent all Americans.

Conservative media have made a lot over the years about the phony “war on Christmas.” They suggest that media liberals have made wishing everyone a Merry Christmas a form of insult, that they have guilted Americans into wishing folks the milquetoast “happy holidays.”

I have never taken offense to the “happy holidays” greetings, even though I do celebrate Christmas … but that’s just me. Nor do I have any problem wishing people a Merry Christmas. I did so today to a young woman in an Allen, Texas, restaurant who served us a wonderful meal. She accepted my salutation with a broad smile.

So, with all of that I want to declare my hope that we can declare a ceasefire in this idiotic war on Christmas nonsense. There is no such media war. Donald Trump can wish Merry Christmas all he wishes. That’s fine.

It’s also fine with me if a business employee wishes me a “happy holidays.”

This is not a time for conflict, division and rancor. It’s a time for joy, peace and tranquility.

national news

War on Christmas: always been a phony issue

Santa Claus is on his way.

Christmas is about to arrive. We’ll have a good day. We’ll spend some time with our sons, our daughter-in-law, our granddaughter and her brother.

Our time preceding this holy day has been relaxing and full of joy. I refuse to let the “hassles” supposedly associated with the holiday season get the better of me. There are no hassles as far as I’m concerned, so don’t tell me about them.

I want to assure you as well that as I’ve done my shopping — whether for groceries or gifts during this season — I keep hearing “Merry Christmas” from vendors’ employees as I complete my purchases.

Isn’t that cool? Sure it is! It’s also evidence as I see it of the phoniness of the so-called “war on Christmas” that conservative mainstream media tend to suggest is under way. Former Fox News blowhard Bill O’Reilly was the chief proponent of this phony war; he’s gone from Fox now, but others have mentioned it from time to time.

Donald Trump campaigned for president vowing to insist that businesses with their customers “Merry Christmas,” and not “Happy Holidays.” Fine, except that it’s never been an issue or a problem.

So I want to declare tonight that the war on Christmas doesn’t exist. Let’s just declare victory against a non-existent enemy against this joyous holiday and go about our business.

There. I just did.

Merry Christmas, everyone.

national news

Is POTUS going to spoil the holiday spirit again?

I’m sure you remember when Donald John Trump was campaigning for president and he said he would require business employees to wish their customers a “Merry Christmas.”

As if he had the authority to do such a thing.

If he’s elected president, the Republican nominee said, he would bring Christmas back into play. No more “Happy Holidays” for that guy. Swell. 

It’s as if Christmas ever disappeared. Which it didn’t. It never has. It never will in a society such as ours where we place so much emphasis on Christmas, whether in the secular, gift-buying, retail frenzy sense or in the spiritual, Christian-based celebration.

What is likely to annoy me in the extreme would be to hear the president make this Merry Christmas brouhaha — a figment of POTUS’s imagination — part of the myriad holiday events in which he will take part.

That would ruin the event. Tree lighting ceremonies well could become platforms for the president to make idiotic declarations about how he is bringing “Merry Christmas” back from the dead.

I am a baptized Christian, a believer in the reason we celebrate Christmas in the first place. However, I never — ever! — have taken offense when someone wishes me a “Happy Holidays.” That individual is likely a stranger. He or she doesn’t know a thing about me. He or she might not want to offend me by wishing me a greeting aimed at those who worship a certain way. For that matter, that person might be a flaming atheist who cannot bring herself or himself to mentioning Christmas in any fashion. I would have no idea.

I am OK with that. Honest. It doesn’t matter one bit to me.

Therefore, I find all this Merry Christmas vs. Happy Holidays kerfuffle to be a made-up, phony, bogus, dubious controversy.

We likely will be able to rest assured that the president of the United States is intent on ensuring that it stays at the top of people’s minds.

business news

Ready for the next ‘war on Christmas’?

Bill O’Reilly doesn’t have a national cable news network these days from which he can lambaste what he has labeled the phony “war on Christmas.”

The Fox News Channel kicked Bill-O off the air after he was accused of sexual harassment. But . . . his legacy lives on in the hearts and minds of those who continue to suggest that the “liberal mainstream media” have declared “war on Christmas” by promoting the dreaded “happy holidays” greeting instead of “Merry Christmas.”

That’s all ridiculous.

The so-called war on Christmas has commenced. My wife and I took a gander this afternoon en route to a Thanksgiving dinner with our son, daughter-in-law and granddaughter at the “troops” lining up outside a JC Penney store at the Fairview Town Center Mall.

There will be other such lineups occurring later tonight and throughout the next few weeks leading up to Christmas.

Yep, the war is being waged not by the media but by retailers who sucker people into stores to do battle with each other over the latest trendy toys, the latest video games, the latest gadget, outfit or . . .  whatever.

I’ve never bought into the bogus notion that the war on Christmas is the figment of the “mainstream media.” The reality lies in the minds of corporations seeking to parlay our lust for material goods into a Christmas frenzy that will play out in stores across the land.

I will not suit up for this war, thank you very much. It’s not that I am better than anyone else. It’s just that when I was much younger I had a brief encounter with a real war in a far away land. I don’t want to take part in any phony rendition of the term here at home.

So, let the real war on Christmas commence without me.

I’ll reserve my energy for the real thing in just a little more than month. Others of you can just knock yourselves out. Just don’t let me hear about fistfights — or worse — at the mall. Deal?

national news

Actually, ‘Merry Christmas’ never went away

Donald J. Trump is taking credit for “leading the charge” in bringing back the “Merry Christmas” greeting.

I want to inform the president of the United States that the greeting never went away. It never became uncool to say. It never became a greeting that fell victim to some phony political correctness allegation.

The president is entitled to take whatever credit he desires. He can do that now. He’s in charge of the world’s greatest nation.

However, he has made an unprovable statement. He said some movement — presumably on the left — declared war on Christmas. That’s not true, either. No one went to war against the holy holiday. No one said it was no longer in vogue to wish people a Merry Christmas. No one issued any such decree.

It’s been those on the right who made it an issue in the first place. Bill O’Reilly routinely ginned up some mild hysteria on the right by calling attention to the phony war. He’s off the air now. So he has bequeathed that battle cry to others. I guess the president has taken up the issue as his own.

Trump tweeted: People are proud to be saying Merry Christmas again. I am proud to have led the charge against the assault of our cherished and beautiful phrase. MERRY CHRISTMAS!!!!!

Thank you, Mr. President. Merry Christmas to you as well.

But … there’s been no “assault.”

national news

About that ‘war on Christmas’

There once was a time when I never felt a twinge of self-consciousness when I wished someone “Merry Christmas.”

I’d go to a retail store. I would make a purchase. I’d take my merchandise. I would wish the store clerk a Merry Christmas. He or she would respond in kind; maybe the clerk would say it first and I would respond.

No big deal. It’s what we did.

Then came this goofy “War on Christmas” mantra. It came from conservative media talking heads and writers, who got their underpants knotted up over an alleged conspiracy by the liberal media to downplay Christmas references during this holiday season.

In my mind it served to highlight what we many of us knew all along, which is that not everyone celebrates Christmas. Our nation’s population comprises many more non-Christians these days: Muslims, Jews, Buddhists, etc.

So, where do we stand today?

I do not take one tiny bit of offense when someone wishes me “Happy Holidays.” Nor do I flinch when they say “Merry Christmas.” I take both greetings the same way: as expressions of good cheer during a cheerful and joyful holiday.

Donald John Trump Sr. declared in 2016 while campaigning for the presidency that retailers would again wish customers a Merry Christmas if he were elected president — as if the office gives him the power and authority to mandate such a greeting.

Give me a break!

I guess I am left to offer a derisive word of “thanks” to those media talking heads for holiday-shaming us by declaring the existence of some phony “war on Christmas.”

There’s never been a war, unless you discount the hyper-commercialism of the holiday and the mayhem created by the first Friday after Thanksgiving. That’s where the alleged “war” is being fought.

Hey, let’s all have a happy holiday season.

Shall we?

national news

Trump vows to bring Christmas back into vogue

Donald Trump must be channeling Bill O’Reilly.

You see, O’Reilly is fond of declaring annually that the “liberal mainstream media” are declaring war on Christmas. The former Fox News Channel host would rail constantly about the alleged war, chiding merchants across the nation for their habit of wishing “happy holidays” to their customers.

Now comes the president of the United States. He spoke to the Values Voter Summit and said that, by golly, we’re going to forgo “political correctness” and start saying “Merry Christmas.”

Where does one begin with this one? I’ll start a discussion.

War on Christmas?

I am a practicing Christian who understands the meaning of the Christmas holiday. Do I take offense when someone wishes me a happy holiday? Not in the least! The merchant who wishes me a happy holiday has no idea of my faith. He or she doesn’t know me.

I am more likely than not to wish the individual who offers me the generic holiday greeting a Merry Christmas in return.

Then I go on my way. No harm no foul.

Why, though, does the president choose to make such a big deal of it? I guess it’s because he can and because he seeks to appeal to the more narrow-minded among us who take offense at those who wish them happy holiday rather than Merry Christmas.

I do respect the fact that this nation comprises many millions of citizens who don’t celebrate Christmas. Jews, Muslims, Buddhists, Wiccans, agnostics, atheists — you name them — don’t relish the holiday’s religious significance the way many millions of others Americans do.

While campaigning for the presidency, Trump once promised he would ensure that merchants would display “Merry Christmas” signs in their places of business … as if the president has any real authority to mandate such a thing. He doesn’t.

The president, though, is now declaring war against some non-existent culture conflict.

As if Donald Trump or Bill O’Reilly don’t have enough conflict already on their respective plates.

https://highplainsblogger.com/2014/12/one-more-time-on-war-on-christmas/

business news, national news

Fights break out … thanks for making me look stupid

I spoke too soon.

Just the other day I mentioned to my wife about how little I had heard about unruly Christmas shoppers this holiday season. I didn’t hear about near-riots — or actual riots — at shopping malls across the country.

Then it happened.

On the day called Boxing Day in British Commonwealth countries, Americans flocked to malls to return gifts and to do some post-Christmas shopping for their loved ones.

Fights broke out. They all were apparently unconnected. The cops in Aurora, Colo., ordered a big regional mall shut down after “multiple skirmishes” occurred in the Denver suburb. The picture attached to this post is of a Memphis, Tenn., mall that was locked down also by the police after fights broke out.

A police officer was assaulted in one of the melees that erupted.

http://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/fights-disturbances-and-chaos-breaks-out-malls-across-the-united-states/ar-BBxB0jP?li=BBmkt5R&ocid=spartandhp

Right there, dear reader, is where we’re seeing this so-called “war on Christmas.” You can forget all that ridiculousness about whether to wish someone “Happy Holidays” or “Merry Christmas.” The front line of this war is being fought in your local shopping malls by idiot shoppers who cannot control themselves.

Malls across America need to be declared combat zones.

If I had a helmet and a flak jacket, I’d wear ’em both next time I venture to the mall.

Folks, this ain’t the reason for the season.