Opposition to the supposed “War On Christmas” (meaning any emphasis on the relatively secular aspects of this holiday season i.e. erecting and decorating evergreen trees, purchasing and giving gifts, deploying images of mythic beings like Santa Klaus, Krampus etc.) is one of the great rallying cries of latterday Evangelical Christians in the U.S. and this been going on for centuries at this point and oftimes taken to amazing extremes as this recent article from the Washington Post points out:
“A town crier walks through the streets on Christmas Eve, yelling ‘No Christmas! No Christmas!’
“Traditional Christmas foods are banned — no mince pies, and definitely no pudding. Stores are forced to stay open all day on Dec. 25, and children are required to go to school. Any violations of the ban on Christmas are a criminal offense.
“What is this vision? Are we talking about the post-apocalyptic world predicted by Fox News, where Hillary Clinton won and ‘Happy Holidays’ became the law of the land? Was this what President Barack Obama was planning all along, as a secret Muslim?
“Nope. This is what December looked like in 1647, when the Puritans banned Christmas in Boston because it was seen as nothing more than an unholy pagan ritual. Even the day, Dec. 25, was likely pegged to the Roman, midwinter festival of Saturnalia, according to biblical scholars who can’t quite agree on the day, month or even year that Christ was born. So what place did it have in the New World?
“How’s that for a War on Christmas?”
