{"id":7311,"date":"2014-12-03T20:26:44","date_gmt":"2014-12-03T20:26:44","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/?p=7311"},"modified":"2014-12-03T20:26:44","modified_gmt":"2014-12-03T20:26:44","slug":"war-on-christmas-is-a-media-myth","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/?p=7311","title":{"rendered":"&#039;War on Christmas&#039; is a media myth"},"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>Dan Radmacher used to work as a journalist back east, most recently as editorial page editor of the Roanoke (Va.) Times.<\/p>\n<p>He wrote a wonderful essay in 2006 bemoaning the so-called &#8220;war on Christmas,&#8221; which he said &#8212; correctly,\u00a0in my view &#8212; is a trumped-up creation of right-wing talking heads who populate the Fox News Channel.<\/p>\n<p>Here&#8217;s the link to what he wrote:<\/p>\n<p>http:\/\/ww2.roanoke.com\/editorials\/radmacher\/wb\/96222<\/p>\n<p>I offered my own take on this idiotic &#8220;war,&#8221; noting that the real war is being waged by Black Friday shoppers who battle with each other &#8212; literally &#8212; in the toy aisles at stores across America.<\/p>\n<p>https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/2014\/11\/26\/war-on-christmas-whos-waging-it\/<\/p>\n<p>Dan&#8217;s column, though, does contain a passage worth noting here. He wonders why the conservative media hounds keep harping on retail employees wishing shoppers &#8220;happy holidays,&#8221; instead of &#8220;Merry Christmas.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Here&#8217;s part of what Dan wrote: &#8220;I&#8217;ll admit that I find it silly to refer to &#8216;holiday trees.&#8217; However, those who pride themselves on being good Christians might realize that the Christmas tree is pagan in origin, and that the Bible criticizes the practice: &#8216;For the customs of the people are vain: for one cutteth a tree out of the forest, the work of the hands of the workman, with the axe. They deck it with silver and with gold; they fasten it with nails and with hammers, that it move not&#8217; &#8212; Jeremiah 10:3-4.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;But what&#8217;s so wrong with &#8216;Happy Holidays&#8217; as a season greeting? The word holiday, after all, is derived from holy day.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>The only thing &#8220;wrong&#8221; with it is in the closed minds of those who keep beating the drums on the trumped-up &#8220;war on Christmas.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Let&#8217;s remember, too, that the federal government closes on Christmas.\u00a0Banks are closed. Wall Street shuts down. Students are home from school.<\/p>\n<p>A war on Christmas? It&#8217;s a figment of TV talking heads&#8217; own bias.<\/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>Dan Radmacher used to work as a journalist back east, most recently as editorial page editor of the Roanoke (Va.) Times. He wrote a wonderful essay in 2006 bemoaning the so-called &#8220;war on Christmas,&#8221; which he said &#8212; correctly,\u00a0in my view &#8212; is a trumped-up creation of right-wing talking heads who populate the Fox News &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/?p=7311\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading <span class=\"screen-reader-text\">&#039;War on Christmas&#039; is a media myth<\/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":[2,13],"tags":[1790,3970,5173],"class_list":["post-7311","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-business-news","category-national-news","tag-fox-news-channel","tag-roanoke-times","tag-war-on-christmas"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7311","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=7311"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7311\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=7311"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=7311"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=7311"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}