Christmas Cheer and Holiday Phonies

I am again annoyed by all the retailers’ ads about “holiday shopping” and “holiday gifts” when everyone knows that it is Christmas shopping and Christmas gifts that  they are hoping people will do and buy. What bothers me is the utter hypocrisy and dishonesty of it all. I simply don’t like the cowardly phoniness. If the characters running the retailers are so cravenly afraid of giving offense to someone by mentioning the word “Christmas”,  they should put their money where their mouths are and not stock up for or run ads for Christmas shopping instead of trying  to make their numbers from the holiday of which they dare not speak the name.

The whole business is mainly absurd political correctness anyway. Christmas is  at least  as much a secular holiday as a religious one. Indeed the things people enjoy most about Christmas – the good cheer, the presents, the tree, the decorations, Santa Claus, Rudolph, Frosty, Christmas dinner, time off from work, and so on – are completely secular and enjoyed by millions of people who are not Christians. (I often wonder if the real reason so many of the politically correct among us dislike Christmas has nothing  to do with religion but rather is simply a manifestation  of a general,  puritanical disapproval of ordinary people having too much unstructured, unsupervised, spontaneous fun.)

It has been objected that, while all this may be true, there are still a few people who would be offended by mentioning Christmas, and sensitivity demands catering to their feelings. It is interesting to consider an example of  where a consistent application of this principle would lead. There is a national holiday in January to honor Martin Luther King. There are also those who do not approve of Martin Luther King, might be offended by mentioning the holiday in his honor, and might rather celebrate, say, Elvis’s January birthday instead.  If people were to  approach this situation with  the same sensitivity that is said to be necessary in the case of Christmas, they would need to avoid mentioning Martin Luther King Day and refer instead to the “January holiday” to avoid offending someone.  I doubt if that is something  the sensitivity police would favor, but it is where one arrives applying the standard they recommend.