{"id":11262,"date":"2012-12-10T09:10:20","date_gmt":"2012-12-10T14:10:20","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/religionprof\/?p=11262"},"modified":"2012-12-10T09:10:20","modified_gmt":"2012-12-10T14:10:20","slug":"the-articles-of-christmas-4","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/religionprof\/2012\/12\/the-articles-of-christmas-4.html","title":{"rendered":"The Articles of Christmas"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<\/head>

This post provides official notification of my intention, on or immediately prior to the 25th of December 2012, to wish readers of my blog a Merry Christmas. If you are likely to find such expression of Christmas greetings\/wishes offensive, you are hereby asked to refrain from reading any and all posts on this blog which may have Christmas, Noel, or other synonymous terminology in the title which may be posted between midnight of December 24th and midnight of December 26th Eastern Standard Time. No responsibility is taken for computers whose clock settings cause them to view a post in this category outside the specified time frame.<\/p>\n

The Christmas wishes to be offered will be in accordance with the official articles of Christmas stipulated below (renewed here for this year, 2012,\u00a0having previously been published in\u00a02008<\/a>,\u00a02009<\/a>,\u00a02010<\/a>\u00a0and 2011<\/a>):<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n
The Articles of Christmas<\/strong><\/div>\n

Article I: The use of the expression \u201cMerry Christmas\u201d and its synonyms on this blog (henceforth referred to in this document simply as \u201cMerry Christmas\u201d) is not to be construed as a declaration of war, whether real or metaphorical.<\/p>\n

Article II: \u201cMerry Christmas\u201d is not to be construed as a form of persecution.<\/p>\n

Article III: \u201cMerry Christmas\u201d is not understood to void, invalidate, denigrate, supplant, or replace wishes for a happy Kwaanza, festivus for the rest of us, Hanukkah,\u00a0scary<\/a>\u00a0solstice<\/a>, Newtonmas, or any other celebration currently existing or to be invented in the future, which readers of this blog may celebrate.<\/p>\n

Article IV: The Christmas wishes offered on this blog are void where prohibited by law.<\/p>\n

Article V: Readers in the UK and multiple various former colonial territories of the British Empire are offered as an alternative \u201cHappy Christmas\u201d. This alternative greeting is not to be construed as implying the superiority or inferiority of any specific version of the English language, whether spoken as a living language or extinct.<\/p>\n

Article VI: The use of \u201cMerry Christmas\u201d on or around December 25th is not to be understood to imply that the birth of Jesus occurred on or around that date.<\/p>\n

Article VII: The use of \u201cMerry Christmas\u201d on or around December 25th is not to be understood as excluding a desire on my part that the Christmases of Eastern Orthodox Christians be merry when celebrated on other dates.<\/p>\n

Article VIII: \u201cMerry Christmas\u201d is not to be construed as an attempt to place an obligation upon readers to be merry on December 25th or any alternative date which they may understand as Christmas.<\/p>\n

Article IX: \u201cMerry Christmas\u201d is not to be construed as a contractual guarantee (or otherwise creating a binding legal agreement between the author of this blog and its readers) that Christmas (on whatever date it is celebrated) will in fact be merry.<\/p>\n

Article X: All wishes of \u201cMerry Christmas\u201d offered upon this blog in comments by individuals other than the blog\u2019s author, whether addressed to its author or to other readers, are understood to subscribe to these articles unless otherwise specified.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

This post provides official notification of my intention, on or immediately prior to the 25th of December 2012, to wish readers of my blog a Merry Christmas. If you are likely to find such expression of Christmas greetings\/wishes offensive, you are hereby asked to refrain from reading any and all posts on this blog which […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":136,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[42],"tags":[1852,3403,4381,4871,6303,8094,8739,10800,11558,13535,13542],"class_list":["post-11262","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-humor","tag-christmas","tag-festivus","tag-hanukkah","tag-humor","tag-kwanzaa","tag-newtonmas","tag-parody","tag-satire","tag-solstice","tag-war","tag-war-on-christmas"],"yoast_head":"\nThe Articles of Christmas<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"This post provides official notification of my intention, on or immediately prior to the 25th of December 2012, to wish readers of my blog a Merry\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/religionprof\/2012\/12\/the-articles-of-christmas-4.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"The Articles of Christmas\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"This post provides official notification of my intention, on or immediately prior to the 25th of December 2012, to wish readers of my blog a Merry\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/religionprof\/2012\/12\/the-articles-of-christmas-4.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Religion Prof: The Blog of James F. 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