Jason Bugg versus the War on Christmas

That’s a blurry picture of my Christmas tree along with my cat Moe in the lower right hand corner. It’s stuff like this picture that makes me excited about Christmas.

I like Christmas, I really do.  I like the lights and the idea of giving gifts, I love the music and love how the entire country turns into this halcyon-tinted, 1950s world where Bing Crosby still matters. I love it all. I respect the religion part, although my rational brain knows that the Ghandi-like figure that we are celebrating was actually born in the spring. But the thing that I do not respect about Christmas is how people use it for whatever political platform that they are perched upon.

It comes from all sides: I have Earth Fare shopping, incense burning assholes on one side whining about Christmas being too commercialized and Glenn Beck worshiping fools on the other complaining about Christmas is being taken away from its true meaning. I guess what I’d like to do is to speak up for the sensible amongst us.

Christmas is overly commercialized. There’s too much importance placed upon holiday sales and the “you must buy this or else you are a bad parent/friend/spouse” thing is sickening. Part of me sees the day as an overly capitalistic orgy of credit cards and cash, that’s a given. But another part of me likes to point out that while that is happening, is there any other time of year when the message is to buy things and give them away? There’s something really beautiful about that. I know that whatever happens after you purchase something doesn’t really matter to the people selling the gifts, but it matters to me. Is it shameful and pretty damn repugnant to see people spending so much money when so many others have nothing? Of course it is, but it’s also rather heartwarming to see people spend so much money on something that they are going to give away.

Maybe that’s what keeps me from going completely insane this time of year. I’m not sure if that is it entirely, but it helps.

The other side of the coin is the “War on Christmas” believing tools. On Sunday, I saw the ugliness of this up close.

I sat at my station in the store at my part-time job watching the throngs of people walk in, and smiling to those who made eye contact with me. To my right were a group of middle school cheerleaders letting customers know that they were wrapping presents inside and accepting donations to benefit their cheerleading squad buying age inappropriate uniforms. It was a rather monotonous little routine; the door opens, a customer walks in, the girls say “Happy Holidays”, rinse and repeat.  It kept happening and after a while, I barely even noticed it.

Then, all at once an older white man walked in.  When greeted with a “Happy Holidays” the old man fired back at the girls, his face red and eyes narrow “It’s actually Merry Christmas!” and started to walk past me.  Don’t get me wrong, I enjoy being rude quite a bit, but something about the venom that this old, scared white man spewed at a pair of 13 year-old girls was rather troubling. In the half a second between the rather hateful correction and the moment he began to walk past me an almost contented smile came over his face as his normal coloring returned.

I had to say something, and I said it fast.

Sir, tonight is the second night of Hanukah was what I managed to say as he continued past me.  He stopped, his face within inches of mine, and trembled with anger. For that fleeting moment, I was certain that he was going to fight me, scream at me, or start a complaint that would result in me getting fired from my horrible part-time job, but instead he walked away.

I wondered if he knew that Sunday was part of the Hanukah festivities.  I wondered if he cared. I wondered if he respected anyone else’s faith as much as he expected us to respect his.  I wondered if he knew that not everyone in that room believed in his magical space Ghandi and some people even chose not to celebrate his rather arbitrarily agreed upon birth celebration.

Sometimes I’m taken aback by people’s actions, especially those who actually believe that there is some sort of War on Christmas.  There is no war.  The last time I checked, Christmas was still the only religious holiday that the government recognizes by closing their banks.  The War on Christmas is just another tool cooked up to get white people even more afraid and marginalized.  The War on Christmas is as real as The Great Pumpkin.  Actually, I saw The Great Pumpkin once, so that isn’t entirely true.

When dealing with the people who behave this way, I’m reminded of David Foster Wallace’s commencement speech at Kenyon University. In that speech (which everyone should read, and you can buy it in a book!) he spoke about true intelligence, and how that isn’t just what you learn in books, but about how you perceive the world around you, about how you choose to behave and react to it. It’s quite moving, and Wallace (in his complete genius) illustrates the entire point with only a simple joke: two young fish are swimming along, after a while an older fish swims past them and says “Good morning boys, how’s the water?”  The fish nod and continue swimming, but eventually one looks at the other and says “what the hell is water?”

That is the point of life: to be like the older fish. To be aware of what is around you and to know that the other people around you are going through their lives also.  It’s relatively impossible to think this way and to imagine some sort of persecution going on around you because some people don’t celebrate Christmas. It’s improbable that a person who takes the time out of their day to be a bit more aware would be so rude to a teenaged girl because she wished you well the wrong way.

I wish I could find that old man and talk to him. I imagine that he’d be just as hateful towards me for pointing out that he is an idiot as he was to two thirteen year old girls.

Be like the fish, people.

Until later, be good.