{"id":26883,"date":"2017-12-14T22:21:04","date_gmt":"2017-12-14T22:21:04","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/?p=26883"},"modified":"2017-12-14T22:21:04","modified_gmt":"2017-12-14T22:21:04","slug":"about-that-war-on-christmas","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/?p=26883","title":{"rendered":"About that &#8216;war on Christmas&#8217;"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<div class=\"twitter-share\"><a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/intent\/tweet?via=jkanelis\" class=\"twitter-share-button\">Tweet<\/a><\/div>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/12\/War-on-Christmas.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone size-medium wp-image-26885\" src=\"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/12\/War-on-Christmas-300x151.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"300\" height=\"151\" srcset=\"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/12\/War-on-Christmas-300x151.jpg 300w, https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/12\/War-on-Christmas.jpg 448w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>There once was a time when I never felt a twinge of self-consciousness when I wished someone &#8220;Merry Christmas.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>I&#8217;d go to a retail store. I would make a purchase. I&#8217;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.<\/p>\n<p>No big deal. It&#8217;s what we did.<\/p>\n<p>Then came this goofy &#8220;War on Christmas&#8221; 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.<\/p>\n<p>In my mind it served to highlight what we many of us knew all along, which is that not everyone celebrates Christmas. Our nation&#8217;s population comprises many more non-Christians these days: Muslims, Jews, Buddhists, etc.<\/p>\n<p>So, where do we stand today?<\/p>\n<p>I do not take one tiny bit of offense when someone wishes me &#8220;Happy Holidays.&#8221; Nor do I flinch when they say &#8220;Merry Christmas.&#8221; I take both greetings the same way: as expressions of good cheer during a cheerful and joyful holiday.<\/p>\n<p>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 &#8212; as if the office gives him the power and authority to <em>mandate<\/em> such a greeting.<\/p>\n<p>Give me a break!<\/p>\n<p>I guess I am left to offer a derisive word of <em>&#8220;thanks&#8221;<\/em> to those media talking heads for holiday-shaming us by declaring the existence of some phony &#8220;war on Christmas.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>There&#8217;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&#8217;s where the alleged &#8220;war&#8221; is being fought.<\/p>\n<p>Hey, let&#8217;s all have a happy holiday season.<\/p>\n<p>Shall we?<\/p>\n\n<div class=\"twitter-share\"><a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/intent\/tweet?via=jkanelis\" class=\"twitter-share-button\">Tweet<\/a><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>There once was a time when I never felt a twinge of self-consciousness when I wished someone &#8220;Merry Christmas.&#8221; I&#8217;d go to a retail store. I would make a purchase. I&#8217;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 &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/?p=26883\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading <span class=\"screen-reader-text\">About that &#8216;war on Christmas&#8217;<\/span> <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[13],"tags":[1129,1424,2058,5173],"class_list":["post-26883","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-national-news","tag-conservative-media","tag-donald-trump","tag-happy-holidays","tag-war-on-christmas"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26883","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=26883"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26883\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":26886,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26883\/revisions\/26886"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=26883"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=26883"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=26883"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}