Chestnuts being relevant at this time of the year. I see that Eric Pickles has jumped on the bandwagon even though that particular wagon lost all four wheels some miles back.
Communities Secretary Eric Pickles said “politically correct Grinches” should not be allowed to obscure the fact the festival marks Christ’s birth.
He said festivals like “Winterval” – which combined secular and inter-faith elements in 1990s Birmingham – should be consigned to history’s “dustbin”.
How many times must this cack be debunked before people take notice? Winterval happened two years running during the late nineties in Birmingham, where the local council decided to celebrate a range of winter festivals over a period of several months between October and January – including Christmas. Yet it seems every year someone, somewhere trots out this as an example of some mythical war on Christmas.
“The war on Christmas is over, and the likes of Winterval, [and other alternative names for Christmas festivities] Winter Lights and Luminous deserve to be in the dustbin of history.”
Eric, you twat; there never was a war on Christmas. You might want to check what the organiser said before shooting from the hip:
Quite simply, as Head of events at that time, we needed a vehicle which could cover the marketing of a whole season of events…Diwali (festival of Lights), Christmas lights switch on, BBC Children in Need, Aston Hall by Candlelight, Chinese New year, New Years eve etc. Also a season that included theatre shows and open air ice rink, Frankfurt open air Christmas market and the Christmas seasonal retail offer. Christmas, called Christmas! and its celebration, lay at the heart of Winterval.
My emphasis.
In other words, they were doing exactly what you are now telling them to do.
The only times Christmas lights have not been put up is because some risk-averse idiot banned them on health and safety grounds.
What you say apart, what’s it got to do with some fat twat it Whitehall? If that is what the elected representatives in Birmingham want to do then they should just get on with it.
The war on Christmas is a myth? Maybe, maybe not. The local Sainsbury’s supermarket, last year, decided it would be a good idea not to offend any ethnic minorities by having headless angels on display, thus avoiding the thorny issue of ethnicity.
So there might not be a war on Christmas per se, but there are – as always – an awful lot of people trying to avoid any charges of racial discrimination.
Sainsbury’s are a private company, they can do as they please on their premises. If customers don’t like it, they can take their business elsewhere if the local management behave in a stupid manner as you describe.
Simon, I agree and the Winterval idea wasn’t a bad one.
Being a bit of a grumpy soul, it’s the fact that it all starts off earlier every year that I find tiresome. So, so much for there being any “war” on Xmas – not good for profits.
The Xmas lights were up and on in our town last week, barely into the last half of November!
Bah!
Humbug!
I feel similarly – it should start during the week before and no earlier, frankly. Mrs L and I opted out of the whole shebang some years ago.
However “Oats-so-simple” porrage oats are now doing a “Winter Pudding” flavour. WTF?
I’ve asked when a Christmas Pudding flavour will be available-provided it gives no offence to anyone of course.
He needs to tell it to schools, unlike Sainsbury their customers are not allowed to walk away and are much easier to brainwash.
It’s not as bad as Eric Pickles has made out, but it certainly isn’t the non-issue you make it out to be.
My wife is a librarian, and hence a local government employee.
While the council doesn’t indulge in such nonsense as renaming it “Winterval”, they do make sure that they don’t write “Christmas” on posters. It’s “Season’s greetings” and other such banalities. Every year, more and more of Christmas is eroded. The same for all holidays actually, as they are all “offensive” to someone.
They do this primarily because one of the other librarians is a Jehovah’s witness. Who, I presume, will take any mention of Christmas to be the equivalent of lighting a burning cross on her front lawn.
“Season’s Greetings” has been around since I was a child back in the sixties. It’s a standard phrase. Bland, yes, but so what?
I’ve known a few JWs in my time – and, no, they are no more offended by Christians celebrating Christmas than are Muslims or Hindus. I suspect if someone bothered to ask your wife’s colleague, that is what they would discover.
Some misguided fools go over the top in their political correctness. This much is true, but it does not constitute a war on Christmas, though.
That said, fewer of us are Christians now, so a natural erosion over time towards a general festivity is possibly a natural occurrence. I can’t say that that bothers me over much. But even if that is true, it still doesn’t constitute some diabolical atheist plan to wage war on Christmas as some religious leaders would have us believe – that is an urban myth.
Assuming Yeshua ben Joseph of Nazareth was a real person, we still have absolutely no idea when he was actually born (or even which year, though some good guesses have been made)
The fundies don’t celebrate xmas, nor did that well-kown christian and bastard O. Cromwell.
What’s the fuss about?
Xtianity took over the pagan midwinter festival, re-labelled it “christmas”, and made sure it wasn’t on true mid-winters day, nor Jupiter Sol redevivus (Dec. 26th)
The funny thing about all this sort of rubbish is that it’s supposed to be the wicked atheist secularists who are behind the supposed war on Christianity and yet whenever some real example of anti Christmas twattery comes along it’s always carried out in the name of not offending other faiths.
Yet, as mentioned, other faiths aren’t offended at all. Greg, Christianity made a point of taking over the pagan festivals, that’s what made it so successful.
What made christianity (and islam and judaism) so successful was the organised campaign of blackmail (moral & physical) and intimidation it pursued the microsecond it was within a whiff of power.
That too, of course. Christianity went that little bit further by assimilating the local culture. The early Borg if you like 😉