The Real War on Christmas

So often it seems to me that we all get hyper over the small issues and never get around to the major issues. The most recent example of this for me is the whole noise that is being made about the "War on Christmas." To say "Season's Greetings" or "Happy Holidays" is to be waging a war on Christmas. For the White House to call the tree a "Holiday Tree" is to be a part of the enemies of Christmas.

While I think that there really is a war on Christmas and it is being waged on, at least, two fronts and they are not the one's that are being labelled at part of the war on Christmas.

There has been a long standing and ever expanding war on the religious dimension of the Holy Christmas celebration from Santa Claus. The constant push by retailers and commercial enterprises to promote the giving of gifts has been a long and constant battle with the coming of Jesus. The battle begins sooner and sooner each year and the attacks get wider and wider every year. The multitude of Santa Helpers, the constant playing of songs about "Here Comes Santa Claus," the letters to Santa that get promoted by the media, all are a part of one of the wars against the Mass of Christ. One of the signs of the ever expanding impact of Santa on Christmas is that there have been articles about Jewish children wanting to know if Santa Claus comes to them. Muslim children also eager and hoping that Santa Claus will come to their homes.

The second war against Christmas had a major attack in Newtown, Conn., just last week. If the angels sang at the announcement of the Shepherds, peace on earth, good will toward humanity with whom God is pleased, then the vast amount of violence, death and suffering that we have continued to pour into our society and its psyche is an ongoing part of a war against the peace that has been given in the Christ child. The fear and the insecurity that drives so many people to rush out and buy more guns is one of the fronts of the war against Christmas. Again the angels said, "Fear not, for behold I bring good tidings of great joy." We are constantly pouring more and more fearful, hostile, evil tidings into our public space, our movies, our games, our blogs and tweets are overwhelming and drowning out the tidings of great joy that are announced at Christmas for the believing community.

Yeah, there is a war on Christmas. There has been a war on Christmas going on since Herod killed all the children under 2 years old in order to try to eliminate the child. But the war is not those little things like how you sign your Christmas cards or send "season's greetings." The war is the constant push of Santa to claim the holiday and the constant message of fear, self-protection, violence and the "look out for me and kind and shoot the rest of them" that opposes, negates and drowns out the good tidings of "peace on earth" among people.