the folks from just north of Whoville

Everybody seems to be working on an accelerated schedule this Christmas. Not only are Christmas lights going up early this year, but the anti-Christmas folks are also already appearing. Perhaps their caves north of Whoville are more uncomfortable than usual this year?

A most popular tactic this year is to advocate a new holiday to replace or supplement Christmas. There is Newtonmas, a secular celebration of science on December 25 featuring a decorated apple tree. There is Festivus, with its unadorned aluminum pole and other Seinfeld-derived traditions, observed on December 23. (I assumed this was a joke, but even Rochester is starting to see Festivus celebrations.) There is Jewsmas, an attempt to keep Hannukah pure of Christmas influence. There is Chrismukkah, an attempt to give Christmas a Hannukah influence. And there's that 'old' standby, Kwanzaa, celebrated the week after Christmas.

It is tempting to view these opponents of Christmas as part of some vast left-wing conspiracy, or at least political correctness gone amok. Several conservative and a few liberal pudits claim as much. Some 'atheist activists' openly profess that their attacks on Christmas are part of their war against Christianity. Other anti-Christmas folk are more disingenuous. The founder of Kwanzaa supports the religious aspect of Christmas, but is fighting the "European cultural accretions" of the day. The Chrismukkah site claims to support 'interfaith dialogue' yet list radical atheist and secularist sites among 'websites [they] admire'. Even the term people use for those who dislike Christmas -- "grinch" -- originally came from an editorial cartoonist for a Communist-funded left-wing tabloid! (While that cartoonist eventually became a writer of children's books, he still "really never cared for Christmas".)

But reading all of those sites at one sitting, I get a different impression than that of some conspiracy. Taken together, the common theme seems to be that of "feeling left out", not being allowed to join the majority of American society in this happiest season of the year. The tone of those sites mirrors that of Calvin (of Calvin and Hobbes), an excluded boy who then starts his own 'secret club' so he himself can exclude others. Any American who stays in HK thru Chinese New Year festivities can surely relate to the exclusion the anti-Christmas folks feel. But creating a new holiday for Christmas makes as little sense as creating a new holiday for Chinese New Year.

A better solution than a new holiday is simply including others in your own Christmas fun -- and to join in others' holiday activities when invited. Twice in Boston, I lived with non-observant Jews. One year, when I had to work Christmas morning, my roommate invited me to (in his words) "celebrate the holiday Jew-style": eating Chinese food and watching movies. The next year me and my Gentile roommates made an agreement with a different Jewish roommate. If we agreed to light a menorah and spin the dreidel with her, she would then feel guilt-free enough to celebrate Christmas with us. I have never seen someone so joyful about Christmas as she was! Having only observed other people doing Christmas activities, she insisted we did every possible Christmas activity that (in her words) "doesn't invoke the name of that baby God": buying a fresh-cut tree, decorating the living room with tinsel and lights, sewing personalized stockings, singing Christmas songs, baking cookies, and buying gifts. She even offered to wrap my Christmas gifts! After seeing that kind of Christmas enthusiasm, I know these pseudo-Christmas rituals like the Festivus Feats of Strength or the Jewsmas Dreidel Drinking Game appear awfully skimpy by comparison. Why abolish Christmas in favor of (to paraphrase Seinfeld) "holidays about nothing"?