Kiddo78

Friday, December 07, 2007

Merry Christmas.....Dammit!

To anyone who think it's "offensive" for people to go around saying "Merry Christmas" this time of year. Please read what was written by Ben Stein, who happens to be Jewish:

Herewith at this happy time of year, a few confessions from my beating heart:I have no freaking clue who Nick and Jessica are. I see them on the cover of People and Us constantly when I am buying my dog biscuits and kitty litter. I often ask the checkers at the grocery stores. They never know who Nick and Jessica are either. Who are they? Will it change my life if I know who they are and why they have broken up? Why are they so important? I don't know who Lindsay Lohan is, either, and I do not care at all about Tom Cruise's wife.Am I going to be called before a Senate committee and asked if I am a subversive? Maybe, but I just have no clue who Nick and Jessica are. Is this what it means to be no longer young. It's not so bad.Next confession: I am a Jew, and every single one of my ancestors was Jewish. And it does not bother me even a little bit when people call those beautiful lit up, bejeweled trees Christmas trees. I don't feel threatened. I don't feel discriminated against. That's what they are: Christmas trees. It doesn't bother me a bit when people say, "Merry Christmas" to me. I don't think they are slighting me or getting ready to put me in a ghetto. In fact, I kind of like it. It shows that we are all brothers and sisters celebrating this happy time of year. It doesn't bother me at all that there is a manger scene on display at a key intersection near my beach house in Malibu. If people want a creche, it's just as fine with me as is the Menorah a few hundred yards away. I don't like getting pushed around for being a Jew and I don't think Christians like getting pushed around for being Christians. I think people who believe in God are sick and tired of getting pushed around, period. I have no idea where the concept came from that America is an explicitly atheist country. I can't find it in the Constitution and I don't like it being shoved down my throat. Or maybe I can put it another way: where did the idea come from that we should worship Nick and Jessica and we aren't allowed to worship God as we understand Him? I guess that's a sign that I'm getting old, too. But there are a lot of us who are wondering where Nick and Jessica came from and where the America we knew went to.

When did all of this controversy start about saying "Merry Christmas" to someone? It's not like you're telling them to go to hell, or something else that's understandably offensive. I'm not even a practicing Christian, but it is Christmastime, after all. And it's also Hannukah and whatever else people celebrate these days (Festivus?). If someone wished me a Happy Kwanzaa, I'd smile and politely say, "Thank you. And Merry Christmas!"

What's so damn insensitive about that?!

Like it or not, the majority of Americans are the "Merry Christmas" type. So were our parents and their parents and their parents and their parents......and on & on......Deal with it!