What War?

                                                          +AJPM+


THE CATHOLIC HTOWNER:

Before I reveal my take, I want to make one thing clear:

I don't have a moderate stand on much of anything.

Every single political identity quiz I take has me either so far to the right I'm off the chart or to the near edge with some libertarian leanings.

So yeah...I'm not in the middle on many issues.

Why do I bring this up? Because despite certain news reports or what you may assume given my quiz tests....

I don't think there is a war on Christmas in America.

Sure, there are stories in schools about religious expression being suppressed but whenever I hear that, I notice a) the school in question is never a private or parochial school and b) it's more an example of tragedy of the commons....and yes, I know department stores don't say "Merry Christmas" even though they don't have decorations associated with any holiday not named Christmas...and I know around this time last year, I posted about an email about a company internal memo I received concerning their "holiday party" and the hilarious response they gave.

In spite of these, consider these facts:

- Every single major city has a Christmas tree lighting ceremony and every one is sponsored by the city, ie the local government.

-Depending on the market, every city has at least one radio station that plays Christmas themed music 24-7. Before anyone says anything about those stations being too secular, these same markets also have at least Christian music radio station. Even a former atheist radio station got dropped in favor of Christmas music.

-Every city has a parade celebrating Christmas (two parades if you count elements from Thanksgiving parades).

-The day after Thanksgiving, all major retail stores have an event where people buy presents en masse for...you guessed it, Christmas.


Besides, there aren't any laws in America that say people can't celebrate Christmas so until that does happen, I'm not buying this "war on Christmas" nonsense.