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{"id":40226,"date":"2012-11-29T10:44:38","date_gmt":"2012-11-29T17:44:38","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/markshea\/?p=40226"},"modified":"2014-12-30T11:01:22","modified_gmt":"2014-12-30T18:01:22","slug":"because-nothing-says-joy-to-the-world","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/markshea\/2012\/11\/because-nothing-says-joy-to-the-world.html","title":{"rendered":"Because Nothing Says Joy to the World…"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<\/head>

\u2026like an angry spittle-flecked demagogue in need of Insensitivity Training<\/a>:<\/p>\n

Here\u2019s the thing. I say \u201cMerry Christmas\u201d. If I\u2019m talking to a Jewish person and it\u2019s later in the month, I\u2019ll wish them a Happy Hanukkah or a Happy Holidays. If I go to the store and somebody says, \u201cHappy Holidays\u201d I happily accept it and wish them a cheery \u201cMerry Christmas\u201d. I don\u2019t lay awake at night getting angry about the \u201cWar on Christmas\u201d or fretting about godless damn libruls who are scheming against it. If some insufferable PC demagogue does something silly like say \u201choliday tree\u201d (which is as dumb as \u201choliday menorah\u201d) I laugh. So do most liberals I know, since everybody knows it\u2019s a Christmas tree\u2013including the Jews who strove to restore Christmas trees to Seattle-Tacoma airport <\/a>when some PC nitwit decided to make a desert and call it peace on earth by banishing even \u201choliday trees\u201d from the airport.<\/p>\n

Here\u2019s reality:\u00a0 we live in an increasingly post-Christian culture.\u00a0 We also live in a multi-cultural, multi-faith culture.\u00a0 Store clerks and other such functionaries aren\u2019t making \u201cwar\u201d on Christmas.\u00a0 They are trying to be friendly, get you through the check out line, and not make trouble or get screamed at by hyper-sensitive people.\u00a0 So they opt for \u201cHappy Holidays\u201d and hope that some hyper-sensitive adherent of an Abrahamic religion or pagan obsessive or atheist human toothache does not freak out and shout about being oppressed for their failure to hail Eid\/Ramadan\/Hanukkah\/Christmas\/the Winter Solstice\/freedom from religion.\u00a0 If we, as Catholics, commemorate Christmas by being joyful about the Incarnation and lightening the burden of intimidation faced by ordinary schleps dealing with the public, that\u2019s an evangelistic win for us.\u00a0 If we join the chorus of crazy angry religious people yelling at confused post-Christians, we just help to ensure that more people remain or become post-Christian.<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"