I’m a generally anti-war sort of person, and so I’m very pleased to bring you the good news: the War is over. The War on Christmas, I mean.
If you are not as knowledgeable about global politics and conflicts as I am, allow me to give you a brief history: back in the early to mid 2000s, Fox News contributors like Bill O’Reilly started promoting the idea that liberals hate Christmas and are trying to destroy it, with has-been John Gibson even publishing an entire book on it. Their evidence included “people who don’t celebrate Christmas,” and “other people who understand that.” The words “Happy Holidays” became the new “allahu akbar”: a terrifying rallying cry of an enemy that is hiding in plain site, waiting for the critical moment to enact a devastating terrorist attack, like Target selling Hanukkah candles near the candy canes, or a children’s choir replacing “I Saw Mommy Kissing Santa Claus” with “Let It Snow” in their December performance. Oh, and really basic protection of First Amendment rights, like allowing other religions to display their own symbols on public property alongside the fucking barn where a virgin gave birth to a man god.
It truly was an awful time for Christian conservatives, by which I mean it was a time when they tried awfully hard to pretend they were victims. Of something. The idea quickly spread to the UK, where conservative tabloids decried that “The dead hand of political correctness is throttling the life out of the festive spirit,” which makes libs sound pretty metal, actually.
Anyway, the “War” was immensely stupid to anyone with a brain, but immensely profitable to anyone who relied upon anyone without a brain to give until it hurts. Conservative groups raked in the cash, like The American Family Association getting half a million dollars from buttons and magnets reading “Merry Christmas: It’s Worth Saying” and “Liberty Counsel, a nonprofit law firm affiliated with the religious right, has taken in more than $300,000 with its “Help Save Christmas Action Packs.” The kits include two buttons, two bumper stickers and “The Memo that Saved Christmas,” a guide to defending overt religious expression, such as a nativity scene in a public-school classroom.”
Despite your insane Aunt Petunia ordering as many Action Packs as she could afford on her monthly income from Mary Kay make-up parties, it seems that 20 years from its start, the conservative Christians have actually lost the war–not because Christmas has been destroyed, as that was never the goal coming from the left. No, the left’s goal was much more insidious: to get people to stop giving a shit.
And sure enough, this month, a YouGov poll has revealed that the vast majority of Americans do not, in fact, give a shit about the War on Christmas. When more than a thousand US adults were asked “Do you agree or disagree that there is a war on Christmas in the United States today,” only 23% agreed. Two years ago, that number was 39%. Ten years ago it was 51%. The number of Republicans who agreed dropped from 59% in 2022 to 36% now. That means that the majority of the target market for the War on Christmas are no longer buying it.
Of course, that’s still one in four people who need to calm down, but overall that’s a good thing. Congrats everyone! We won. And with so few casualties!
Okay, that’s it for the good news. Here’s the bad news: people no longer care because the War on Christmas was always just a bullshit wedge, not a war but a battle designed to get conservatives to buy into the larger war–the culture war. Ignore the previous important political issues that divide left and right, like big versus small government, taxes, budgeting, infrastructure, regulation. Who cares? The real issue is that the other side is coming to destroy your very way of life. And what better place to start than with the happiest, merriest, most joyous celebration we collectively enjoy as a society?
The thing about a wedge issue is that once it’s broadly accepted as normal, you can drop it and move on to the stuff you really want to do. Who needs the War on Christmas, once deemed “politically correct,” when we now have evil schoolteachers turning your children trans, “DEI” ruining our institutions, “woke” screwing up everything? The War on Christmas wasn’t just an obviously stupid distraction. It directly led to the further dehumanisation of marginalized people, the loss of affirmative action, the fall of Roe v. Wade.
And Bill O’Reilly TOLD US that’s what the plan was back in 2004, when he said, “Secular progressives realize that America as it is now will never approve of gay marriage, partial birth abortion, euthanasia, legalized drugs, income redistribution through taxation, and many other progressive visions because of religious opposition.
“But if the secularists can destroy religion in the public arena, the brave new progressive world is a possibility.”
There never was a secularist war on Christmas, so O’Reilly and his colleagues invented one in order to push back on what was obviously coming over the horizon: same sex marriage, bodily autonomy, and more. And it worked. Because progressives gained a lot of ground back then, and now we are seeing that ground taken back.
So you know what? Fuck it, the War on Christmas is back on. And this time, we’re going to win it for real. Not through getting people to stop caring, but by thoroughly demolishing and popularizing the “True Meaning” of Christmas.
You see, back when the Puritans first came to North America, they banned Christmas. They were following what they had done back in England, when they chopped off a king’s head and immediately declared that December 25th should be spent fasting and being miserable. They hated Christmas, in part because it wasn’t mentioned in the Bible, but more because it was an obviously PAGAN ritual that had fuck all to do with Christianity and everything to do with eating, drinking, and being merry. They knew that if Christmas caught on, it would do nothing to promote Christianity and in fact would lead to more sin. Sin is when you have fun.
That’s why I celebrate Christmas every year. I put up a big Christmas tree, decorate my house with Christmas lights, give my friends Christmas gifts, and wear silly Christmas sweaters. Because Christmas has about as much to do with Jesus as West Virginia has to do with Queen Elizabeth I. I could give a shit about a magic baby, I’m here to drink eggnog and wear a silly little paper crown on my head. Cry about it, Bill O’Reilly. Oh, and Merry Christmas, you filthy animal.
