Chanukah: Not a Commodity

My own personal war on Christmas was posted to Facebook by a friend of mine who seems to find it funny. I tried, and failed, and I don't think it's entirely due to my general hostility toward the Daily Kos.

No. It just falls flat. What's more, it feels like appropriation of the most unconscious sort--using Chanukah as some sort of shorthand for "Oh, wow, I know that not everyone is a Christian, I'm kind of amazing. Many Gentiles are not as hip and cool as me. I live on the West Coast."

I wanted to like this, if only for the sake this snippet: But what really concerns me? In a couple of nights, that strange candelabra is going to be completely full. I have no idea what's going to happen the night after that. It's almost like a countdown of sorts. I think the storm is coming. And I'm afraid.


That actually made me laugh out loud. But the jab about 'our special relationship with Israel' spoiled it.

Beannachtaí an tSéasúir

Blessings of the season to all of my readers!

SantaGate

So, right here at St. Attracta, we have a major Christmastide scandal underway.

Apparently, last week, the Spanish teacher was asked by some little darling in the fourth grade if she 'believed in Santa'.

This is the point at which, in a nice Catholic school, one is supposed to smile and say "Of course I do!" But Sra. is a devout apostolic evangelical of some sort, and apparently she went into some considerable detail about how not only did she not believe in Santa, but there is only one person whom one is supposed to show worship to and expect things from, and that Christmas is about Jesus, and that belief in Santa Claus is a form of idolatry.

Now, this gets into some deep theological divides in Christianity, having to do with the veneration of the saints, and toy shopping and such, but that's sort of beside the point. The point is that the fourth graders were traumatized, and they told their parents, and their parents called the principal, and it was all fairly insane for a few days.

So, Sra. was told that while she did not have to lie and say she did believe in Santa Claus, she should not lecture the children on the subject, or say that Santa was bad. Good enough.

Yesterday, my own sixth-graders had Spanish class, and I left to go have a cup of coffee. When I returned, some of the kids were polling one another about wehter they believed in Santa Claus, but since I didn't know about the fourth-grade episode, I thought little of it.

ANYWAY, today the principal shows up, and tells me that apparently one of MY little darlings, last night, at bedtime, turns to her mother and says, "Mom, something happened today, and Sra. said not to tell anyone she said it or we'd be in trouble, but I have to tell you. She said there's no Santa Claus!"

Now, I have to say that my own feeling is that a family in which a sixth-grader believes in Santa is perhaps in need of some sharp talk from a Spanish teacher, but anyway, there were more furious phone calls, and I had to pull kids out of class to give testimony about what was said. (The witness kid I called says they were NOT told to keep the whole thing secret, and that Sra. simply said no when asked if she was a Santa believer.)

Such is life in middle school, such is life at St. Attracta.

I have some more I need to tell you about what's going on, but that will have to wait for tomorrow. 

The War Against The War On Christmas Reaches New Depths of Barely-Contained Anti-Semitism

In a cryptic rant on Salon, apparently mostly about how Unitarian Universalists shouldn't mess with "Silent Night", Garrison Keillor writes:

This is spiritual piracy and cultural elitism and we Christians have stood for
it long enough. And all those lousy holiday songs by Jewish guys that trash up
the malls every year, Rudolph and the chestnuts and the rest of that dreck. Did
one of our guys write "Grab your loafers, come along if you wanna, and we'll
blow that shofar for Rosh Hashanah"? No, we didn't.

And so the gloves come off. Mr. Keillor, I'm really, really sorry that you're feeling so victimized at this time of year, but since your private religious holiday takes over Western Civilization for approximately six to eight weeks on an annual basis, please forgive me and Irving Berlin and Mel Torme for failing to give you enough cultural distance to feel that your holiday remains free of Jewish trash and dreck.

Mysteriously, after years of War-On-Christmas nuts moaning about the trauma of having to hear "Happy Holidays" in the stores, the second comment on this screed reads:

Give 'em hell, Garrison! And don't forget: Don't say Merry Christmas...unless you really mean it.

Merry Christmas, Mr. Keillor. And I really mean that...in the same way Ann Coulter does.