#50696: — 11/26  at  10:52 AM
Well, the first war against Christmas that I know of was in the 17th century, in Scotland. The presbyterians then in cotnrol of the religious worship of the country essentially banned it. I shall have to look into it, it all sounds quite interesting.

#50697: covington — 11/26  at  10:57 AM
When I was a kid, the big outrage was the commercialization of Christmas... the malls putting out displays in October, the greed, the gifts. At that time the jeebers wanted Christmas to return to a solemn, religious holiday.

But now that they've made their churches into mini-malls with starbucks and food courts, the big outrage is that the commercialization hasn't gone far enough, that flashing red-nosed Jesus-lights aren't being mounted on every light pole in America.

The real problem is obvious. It's the accumulated brain damage caused by lead pollution. American-style mass-market religion is just a symptom.

#50698: Alon Levy — 11/26  at  11:18 AM
It sounds like the same myths promoted by totalitarian demagogues from time to time in history - the blood plot, the mythologized German kids who got murdered by communists for being good (Nazi) Germans, the polio vaccines that were really a Western conspiracy to sterilize Muslim men... Made-up oppression is hardly a recent invention.

#50699: — 11/26  at  11:21 AM
My city is putting up a Christmas tree this year, only they're not calling it a "Christmas" tree. Oh no, couldn't have that.

So they're calling it a "Military Tribute" tree.

Take that! Check, and mate!

#50701: John Emerson — 11/26  at  11:45 AM
Wikipedia:

"After Oliver Cromwell's Puritans took over England in 1645, the observance of Christmas was prohibited in 1652 as part of a Puritan effort to rid the country of decadence. This proved unpopular, and when Charles II was restored to the throne, he restored the celebration. The Pilgrims, a group of Puritanical English separatists who came to North America in 1620, also disapproved of Christmas, and as a result it was not a holiday in New England. The celebration of Christmas was actually outlawed from 1659 to 1681 in Boston, a prohibition enforced with a fine of five shillings. The English of the Jamestown settlement and the Dutch of New Amsterdam, on the other hand, celebrated the occasion freely. Christmas fell out of favor again after the American Revolution, as it was considered an "English custom." Interest was revived by Washington Irving's Christmas stories, German immigrants, and the homecomings of the Civil War years. December 25 was declared a federal holiday in the United States on June 26, 1870."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christmas

#50703: — 11/26  at  11:51 AM
PZ: In a few weeks, this atheist's war on Christmas will begin in earnest when I take the family out to the local tree farm, pick out a fine Christmas tree...

I'm as irreligious as you are PZ, and I too enjoy the Christmas holiday as one of family togetherness, charity and cheer, good food and drink, and I indulge in all the trimmings, the lights, the decorations, etc., including a tree.

However, do you have to use a dead tree? Anything wrong with a nice fake one? It's reusable, and safer too, fire-wise. I'm not against using lumber -- judiciously -- but even if you were to prove to me that we do no damage to the environment by farming oodles of trees every Christmas, it still seems like such a waste to cut down perfectly healthy trees for purely ephemeral aesthetic reasons.

#50704: — 11/26  at  12:02 PM
Yule! Waes Hail! Though I think it's far too early to start celebrating the Winter Solstice - just over three weeks to go to the 21st December. Still, in these dark northern hemisphere winter evenings, I think we all need coloured "Christmas" lights and warming festivities to cheer us up. We Europeans are quickly reverting to our pagan origins. None of that new-fangled mid-eastern religion here, thank you.

#50705: Ron Sullivan — 11/26  at  12:04 PM
Aris, what would those tree farmers be farming if they weren't farming Christmas trees? All things considered, I'd bet it's on the low-impact end to be growing trees for five-ten years rather than the usual annual crops, or even, say, orchard fruit that is more likely to be pesticided.

Conifers aren't quite pest-proof, but I think that growing cycle and the variety of choices a grower has would make the operation less touchy.

Actually, if there were fewer of us, mushing into the woods and cutting a young tree every year would also be all sustainable 'n' groovy, as it would have the effect of thinning the fire ladder in favor of mature big relatively fire-resistant trees.

#50707: — 11/26  at  12:06 PM

It will culminate with presents under the tree and a big dinner and happy phone calls to all the relatives scattered around the country. Thus will the moral rectitude of our nation be undermined.

Fight the power, PZ!

It's interesting to ponder the sociological reason for all this 'them evil liberals are stealing Christmas' nonsense that seems to be all the rage among conservatives these days. I honestly think it's deliberately been launched by a handful of GOP functionaries, commentators, and clergymen in order to unify the 'base'. The Bush administration is slowly collapsing, 2/3rds of the American public disapproves of him, the Iraq war is an unwinnable nightmare, New Orleans was botched horribly, news of this is starting to filter out, so they need to unify the rightwing Christians to keep them in line. Gay bashing and the wonderful policies of George Bush alone aren't enough to accomplish this, so in order to keep the faithful engaged, they create a meme of 'they're attacking Christmas'. Even a fundie who thinks Iraq is a disaster can get behind that. In other words, a lot of gullible fundies are being shamelessly manipulated, but what else is new?

Another dimension is simply that Conservatives welcome this talking point because there's nothing else pleasant for them to talk about these days. It's a good way of changing the subject.

#50708: QrazyQat — 11/26  at  12:07 PM
If anyone hasn't seen it, the Salon article, "How the secular humanist grinch didn't steal Christmas" by Michelle Goldberg has some interesting info on the roots of this "war" and this very good thought:

The war on Christmas trope lets the right pretend to be playing defense when it's really on the offensive -- against the ACLU, separation of church and state, and pluralism, to name just a few targets.

She points out that this "war" was pushed by the John Birch Society in the 1950s, and before that by Henry Ford in his 1921 opus, The International Jew (not a friendly "be kind to Jews" piece of writing, in case you thought it might be). And the History Channel points out that "After the American Revolution, English customs fell out of favor, including Christmas. In fact, Congress was in session on December 25, 1789, the first Christmas under America's new constitution. Christmas wasn't declared a federal holiday until June 26, 1870."

#50710: Kristine Harley — 11/26  at  12:20 PM
As someone who has relatives who are Jehovah's Witnesses, I am always amused by the "Those politically-correct liberals are censoring Christmas" charge. Anytime these conservatives want to meet true Christmas-haters, they should go to a Witness meeting. The Madonna and child stamp is verboten there, too. No Christmas trees, no Christmas presents, no Christmas, nada! It's all "pagan devil-worship," and "those Catholic heathens" are all going to hell! (So I guess this atheist will see ya there, Mikey Behe.)

Jehovah's Witnesses consider themselves the only true Christians, whereas Pat Robertson and his ilk proclaim that they are not even Christian at all. Yeah, if conservatives didn't manufacture this silly Christmas war every year, more people would notice how fractured and at odds with each other the Christian right really is.

#50711: Kagehi — 11/26  at  12:33 PM
Yep, the loonies are definitely out this year. What's next, people that don't have both a nativity scene *as well as* a christmas tree are trying to destroy Christmas? lol

#50712: — 11/26  at  12:47 PM

Jehovah's Witnesses consider themselves the only true Christians, whereas Pat Robertson and his ilk proclaim that they are not even Christian at all. Yeah, if conservatives didn't manufacture this silly Christmas war every year, more people would notice how fractured and at odds with each other the Christian right really is.

A crucial illusion in the Christian Right's rhetoric is that there are ONLY two types of people in America, wicked homo liberal atheist democrats, versus good godly Christian Republicans, all of whom think exactly alike and who all agree with Bill O'Reilly. If you can convince people of this, it boils down to a 'battle' of good versus evil where one side wins and the other loses. A more accurate scenario -- where some Christians don't celebrate Christmas, where there are nonchristians who DO celebrate Christmas, where there are liberal Christians, where there are nonreligious conservatives, where there are Christians who don't think they're oppressed, where there are nonchristians who think all this is irrelevant -- acknowledging the existence of this multitude of different groups just muddies the whole zero-sum, us-versus-them game that the GOP has played with such success.

As some writer whose name I forget described the policies of the Bush administration, "divide the country in half and make sure you get the bigger half".

#50713: — 11/26  at  12:56 PM
Oh please, "Christmas under Siege" (tm) is just another scheme to separate pious suckers from their money. Since anyone with half a brain (whoops, that leaves out most of the fundies) can see that there's no actual assault on Christmas, somebody somewhere will just have to make up some lies. This ridiculous charge has re-surfaced every few years since I've been alive, anyway. I can remember people getting all exercised about the abreviation "X-mas" (it takes the Christ out of Christmas! Pant, gasp.) when I was a child. Historically there have been lots of Christian sects that do not celebrate Christmas. OTOH all of the atheists that I know quite enjoy the lights, presents, Santa Claus stuff.

#50715: — 11/26  at  01:08 PM
It's always there. There's always going to be some loon or other yelling that we aren't pious enough - heck, I've only been alive for 19 years and I can remember that most every holiday season winds up sounding like this. The trick is to just sit back, let them foam and froth, and enjoy the season in spite of them.

#50716: — 11/26  at  01:11 PM
Ron Sullivan: ...what would those tree farmers be farming if they weren't farming Christmas trees?

I heard this argument a million times, and indeed one can use it to justify absolutely any endeavor. But it is nothing but a logical fallacy -- Argumentum ad Misericordiam, an appeal to pity or misery. You could use the same argument to claim that we should not try to prevent SPAM, because otherwise what those poor spammers do for a living instead?

The question remains: Is it rational to waste so many resources for a product that provides only ephemeral aesthetic pleasure, and which does have an economical, safer substitute? Growing a tree for a half decade so it can be chopped down to be used as a dangerous decoration for a fortnight and then discarded, seems an awful waste.

#50721: — 11/26  at  01:22 PM
Someone is complaining that the Post Office is insufficiently pandering to Christians? I already can't my mail on Sunday, simply because its their Sabbath. Ugh.

#50722: garth — 11/26  at  01:22 PM
I think the cabal has dusted off the "attack on Xmas" so often as a test of their mechanisms...their media arm, their religious (propaganda) arm, and the affiliated political arm. they have useful controls to measure the efficacy of their machine versus previous years using the AOX garbage.

same as there's a large clump of the population (like me) that won't let the remote rest for more than a halfsecond on FNC, there's a clump that will not believe anything they hear from anything other than FNC, or WND, or LGF.

#50724: — 11/26  at  01:29 PM
The Happy Holidays vs Merry Christmas whining by the Christian right strikes me as another attempt to undermine respectful diversity. When one says Happy Holidays they are covering Thanksgiving, Hannuka, Christmas, Kwanza and New Year at the very least. As with many things in the culture wars, some think that many traditions deserve respect in the public sphere, and other think that only THEIR traditions are worthy.

They are worthy of contempt for such an attitude in my book.

#50729: — 11/26  at  02:23 PM
Ah, here we are. Tom Johnston, (someone whom PZ might would agree with politically) claims that christmas was outlawed in Scotland, presumably the Cromwell as mentioned above, but not reintroduced until an act of 1712, by which time the parliaments of Scotland and England were joined. So I make that 60 years. So, if a lot of these fundamentalists are presbyterians, you should ask them what their ancestors were up to back in the 17th century.

#50731: — 11/26  at  03:02 PM

However, do you have to use a dead tree? Anything wrong with a nice fake one? It's reusable, and safer too, fire-wise. I'm not against using lumber -- judiciously -- but even if you were to prove to me that we do no damage to the environment by farming oodles of trees every Christmas, it still seems like such a waste to cut down perfectly healthy trees for purely ephemeral aesthetic reasons.

At least in my community, Christmas trees tend to come back as grass, flowers, tomatoes, etc. The city collects the dead trees and sends them off to be mulched. Probably not ideal, but a lot better than just throwing away (or burning) the dead trees.

Back to the original topic: It isn't just religious nuts who invoke the whole "you're ruining Christmas" theme. Check out this discussion of proposed light pollution laws near Washington, DC a few years ago. The primary critic doesn't appear to be a religious nut -- the language he uses is quite different (it's "private property extremism", i.e., "I can do whatever I want", and "if it happens to affect your property, too bad").

Now then -- off to put up the Christmas lights my essentially non-religious household isn't supposed to put up.

#50733: — 11/26  at  03:09 PM
ColoRambler At least in my community, Christmas trees tend to come back as grass, flowers, tomatoes, etc.

It is good that your community recycles discarded Christmas trees, but it still makes no sense to me to use them in the first place. Dragging a dead tree in your living room for a couple of weeks is in itself silly. When you consider that the tree was grown for five years before its intended "usage" then I think the whole process becomes rather obscene.

#50740: — 11/26  at  03:38 PM
Since the information on the stamps was wrong, I think it had to come from Dick Cheney's office. It's one more case of a Pope-wannabe trying to send Christians off to war for no reason at all.

#50742: Ron Sullivan — 11/26  at  04:07 PM
- Argumentum ad Misericordiam

I'll forgo the in-joke that I have a college degree in that... oh, OK, too late, I didn't. But:

Baloney.

an appeal to pity or misery.

No one has to feel sorry for the pooooor farmer here. She owns some land (I'm envious already) and intends to make a living from it. Wait, OK, given the realities of small farms: intends to make part of a living from it. Chances are she's not going to give it to the local parks, and if she did they'd probably build a goddamned soccer field on it anyway.

If it's not nice rich bottomland, which is alternately washing away and being built over lately, that means that annual crops like grain, vegetables, or beans will need even more supplemental fertilization than it did back on the old place where the mall is now. More additives -- even if they're organic -- means more fertilizer runoff, more eutrophication of the neighboring waterways and lakes, more smothered fish and plants and what-had-you. Oh yes, and more water use.

So now she considers perennial crops; orchards? More fertilizer, again, more water, and you do know that orchards get "renewed" periodically, don't you? Which means cutting trees. You can noodge a cherry or peach twig along for a few years but they aren't long-lived as fruit bearers the way apple spurs are, and eventually you'll have to replace the whole tree unless you're a high-end arboriculturist who can keep stuff alive for a century or two. And they don't do that for orchards.

Meanwhile, you're spraying for bugs, shooting birds, all that jolly friendly stuff.

Conifers as a crop don't have to be babied quite that much, and the variety of species that people will buy -- different in different parts of the country, I notice -- means you can grow something suited to your soil and climate. And harvest on a multi-year rotation, which is a good thing for erosion control and for the local wildlife.

Pity, my fat ass. I'm telling you that Yuletree farming is doing the right thing, and needs no apologies. How do you feel about cut flowers, those funny gourds, or the red corn bundles hanging on the neighbors' doors? Comes to that, I bet most of what you eat isn't really necessary... bread, for instance, is definitely an indulgence compared to boiled grain.

I'm puzzled by the "dangerous" bit, but then we don't put lights on our tree; I guess that's what you're on about. As to the tree, I'm really cruel about that. We keep a redwood in a five-gallon can in the yard, root-prune and groom it once a year, and drag the poor thing into the house to be dehydrated, twisted about, and pinched all over with clips and hooks for three-four weeks every winter. One of these days I expect it to safeword.

#50744: Mrs Tilton — 11/26  at  04:18 PM
Though PZ is an atheist and I am not, it's possible that I feel more strongly than he does that there should not be USPS stamps with madonne & bambini on them. ('Why?', you may ask. Here's a hint: 'USPS' stands for United States Postal Service, a government agency.)

Mind you, there's a strong case to be made for madonna & bambino stamps as celebrations of great art (rather than as religious statements). True, most of the best of these images were made not only by non-Americans but centuries before Europeans even knew there was such a place as America. Not a lot of direct nexus to the US, if you follow me. But I am not going to quibble if the USPS help people become acquainted with Rafaello etc.

I must disagree strongly with PZ on the madonna v. Wonder Woman issue, though. I take no stance on the relative merits of the two women. (And in fact I'm delighted to hear the USPS are going to have a series of comic-book-hero stamps.*) But with all due respect to the artists who've portrayed WW down the years, the mother-and-child motif has been taken up by artists in another league altogether.

* BTW, DC Comics are all well and good. But if there are to be superhero stamps, is this not an invidious limitation? Where is Spider-Man? Where is The Spirit? And -- I'd have thought an academic in America's upper midwest would have been particularly sensitive on this point -- where the *#&% is Megaton Man???!!!