Listen Up! Stop The "War On Christmas/Easter!" Stuff!

There are a few things people do every holiday season, including Easter, Halloween and Christmas, especially Christmas, that drive me up the wall!

1. Holiday chain letters.

2. People who grouse "Christmas is too commercial!" Well, it's only as commercial as you personally make it, so make yours less commercial then and never mind what everyone else does. We all celebrate it differently, and griping about greed at this time of year is a real kiljoy. Christmas is not about commercialism for me, even though I do gift exchanges.

3. The supposed 'war on Christmas' and now a spin-off into the 'War On Easter' that people like Bill O'Reilly, Sarah Palin, and others at fox are absolutely bent on starting every blasted year! And yes, this is a large proportion of holiday chain letter activity. And it doesn't show any signs of stopping or slowing down. This stupid war BS has now been extended to include Easter! *Facepalm! Easter hasn't been hit with quite the same wallop of chain letters as Christmas gets, but there are still some that go around, encouraging Christians to make pests of ourselves and even pass things on that aren't true.

Death Of Jesus Exploited In Hoax If Jesus Had Email, The Edith Burns Story No Time For God, Funny How etc. Prayer Wheel

These are likely to increase if O'Reilly gets his way and Christians get whipped up into a moan and spread the virals frenzy, twicee a year!

O'Reilly has become so infamous for this obsession that the liberal/progressive lulz over it has gotten absolutely massive. There is even a liberal false story chain claiming he got arrested for assaulting a mall Santa. Funny how it's called "satire" when the left does it, but it's called "rumours" "smears" "whisper campaigns" when a false story comes from the right. Chain letters any way you slice it.

I remember a time before the infamous nonsense war of words got started in 2005. Before then, people said and saw various greetings everywhere. There was "Merry Christmas" there was "Happy holidays" there was "Season's greetings" and "Good tidings" and nobody got it into their heads that using any of those other than "Merry Christmas" was considered politically correctness trying to kill Christianity. All greetings were taken for what they were intended to be.

Since 2005, people seem intent on sucking the enjoyment and the meaning out of Christmas, and I don't mean who you might expect me to say, considering I am a Christian.

The biggest threats to Christmas and the enjoyment of it and what the christmas spirit is all about, is not so much the atheists, even though there are plenty who are fanatic enough about their anti-theism to want all trace of Christianity gone. They are not the real problem, though, not as long as they aren't given the attention they keep seeking.

The real Christmas kiljoys?

The problem lies with all the "Put Christ back into Christmas!" type chain letters, the far-right and with Fox and their "War On christmas" and perpetuating paranoia and "Holiday Trees" hoaxes and all such "The big bad atheist brotherhood is out to totally kill christmas world-wide!" crap.

The 'War on Christmas' agenda and chain letters!

This goes particularly bad when the claim winds up debunked on some hoax-busting site right along with the Bloody Mary cursed mirror chain letter.

Every year this alarmism turns up again and again!

I open my email and get one for a site featuring some post or other by some user calling themself "SayMerryChristmas" and I just want to scream. I know what that's all about, have seen this "We gotta save Christmas by saying 'Merry Christmas' and completely annihilating 'happy holidays' far too many times than I care to count, cropping up in virals every year.

I go on the web and this dreaded alarmism and whinge-fest shows up on blogs and online journals.

Going on Facebook, I see various chain statuses and other posts including the War On Christmas stuff. It crops up on posts made by contacts and their commenters who have been told we are awash in a sea of political correctness and must combat it to save Christmas and the right to be Christian.

I get David Emory's Urbanlegends.about.com news letter, and in it, the first among the top 10 hoaxes of 2012 was a Facebook status falsely claiming FB was trying to get Nativity pictures removed because they were supposedly offending non-Christians.

In the 2013 Christmas season, another "War On Christmas" hoax barged on the scene, this one from tabloid/fake news site NationalReport.net claiming that a nine-year-old boy named Timothy Dawson was suspended from Anon Elementary School in San Francisco California (Anon, really?) for wishing atheist teacher Paul Horner a Merry Christmas.

If the name of the school doesn't tip you off that this is fiction, this article should.

Even one of NationalReport's own articles claiming that holiday spending has decreased because families really are expecting gifts from Santa should clinch it for you as evidence of that site being one great big pile of malarkey.

Nationalreport.net has been having a field day with this "War On Christmas" crap as has DailyCurrant, Theonion etc.

Some of their headlines and stories:

War on Christmas:liberals mock jesus with memes Alabama School – `Jesus Not Welcome at Christmas`; Common Core to Blame War on Christmas:Salvation Army Volunteer Attacked Atlanta Teacher Replaces Christmas Play Christmas Play Off, Muslim Play On Student`s Christmas Ruined After Atheist Teacher Proclaims `Santa Isn`t Real`

I want to smash something! Yes, I am upset, but not for the reasons whoever starts these things is hoping, nor am I upset at who they want me to be.

I am upset with anyone who starts these chain letters, and vexed at so many Christians continuing to replicate this stuff blindly.

These scared-silly religious panic chains are nothing new.

The infamous "Santa VS. Jesus" chain letter is full of sayings that tell you things like: "Santa lets you sit on his lap, but Jesus holds you in his arms." It is a collection of cheesy phrases containing reasons why Jesus is better than Santa, a thinly disguised paranoid pseudo-religious rant that contains undertones of the all too typical "Christianity is being threatened! Save it by passing on this chain letter that reminds people why Jesus is better than Santa!" It's a one-upmanship game that Jesus and both the historical St. Nicholas and Santa Claus as we know him today would strongly discourage.

The Jesus Vs. Santa chain is posted on Kevin Murrell's blog Becca's blog Kathy's blog and many others.

Unfortunately, it and so many others just like it, have given anti-theists more opportunity and excuse to lulz, and this is not at all discouraged on the Snopes message boards. Some anti-Christian food-cop posted about how if Jesus was everywhere around the world all the time, more than Santa going around the world in a sleigh one night a year, then Jesus must be super super fatter than santa. That kind of crap passes for discussion on those message boards.

Adding to the Santa VS. Jesus, Holiday trees hoax and the rest of this rotten promotion of the "War on Christmas" hysteria are the faux Jesus chain letters! These are irredeemably awful pieces of writing, supposedly from Jesus's point of view, deliberately designed to target Christians into a forwarding frenzy to save Christmas.

One made Jesus out to look like the most whiny, self-pitying little puke, the other made him out as an arrogant jerk, spouting the "holiday trees" hoax. both pretenders fixated on one-upping Santa and having him drummed out of Christmas, in the belief that he's somehow replacing Jesus altogether for Christians. Mr. Selfpity just simpered all the way through his chain about how nobody paid any attention to him or gave him hugs and gifts. Mr. Arrogance was started in reaction to the other War On Christmas virals, on the one hand, telling people to stop worrying, yet at the same time, continuing to spread the Holiday Trees and anti-Santa hysteria.

The Holiday Trees.

This stupid hoax started back in 2009 and was drudged up again in 2011, and again in 2012. references to the fictional Holiday Trees show up in various virals, including one that mishmashes and mangles, requites and misquotes Ben Stein and Anne Graham Lotz, as well as tossing in a bunch of other lies. This junk is exactly what we Christians should not be encouraging, let alone spreading.

Lowes didn't try to ban Christmas. The "family tree" thing was the result of some kind of misprint error. A wild hysterical ""Lowes wants to cancel Christmas and take away our Christmas trees!" chain letter resulted. It isn't true, Loes isn't out to kill Christmas. Got it? the 2009 version of the Holiday Trees chain is a hoax, it is bogus. It may have come from another misunderstanding. Read here.

President's Park (White House) - National CHRISTMAS Tree Music Program CHRISTMAS tree farm refills tall order for White House The chain email is a pants-on-fire lie. Those sites won't convince everyone, the Washington Post is judged as leftist by conservatives, and Politifact, while calling itself non-partisan, constantly call out more lies coming from conservatives than from democrats. A practice of most sites seems to be jumping all over chain emails designed to zero in on and hook conservatives, while completely overlooking those meant to mobilize democrats into internet slactivism. this consistently projects the idea that conservative chain email activity is far greater than democrat chain letter activity on the net. It is just one reason people on the non-left need to abandon viral activity.

Politifact and all other skewed results favouring the left as supposedly more truthful and less chain-addicted while the right is supposedly a pit of liars and "crazy uncles" aside, this should give one pause for thought. TruthOrFiction.com is a hoax-busting site, not Snopes either. It too debunks the "holiday tree" lie. The Obamas are not replacing Christmas with Holiday trees.

Mailbombing the ACLU is not the Christian thing to do, neither is believing and passing on bogus and manipulative chain letters.

The ACLU doesn't always get it right either, there are times they definitely pick the wrong battles and fight for the wrong side because not even they seem to recognize or care about the difference between free speech and the abuse of that freedom, and it is this sort of coddling school bullies get that enable them to keep on bullying with impunity.

but there are times the ACLU does get it right.

ACLU Fights For Christmas Tree Far from being our enemy or some sort of anti-Christ, The ACLU fights for Christians!

Target has not and is not banning the words "Merry Christmas! Neither is The GAP!

Best Buy isn't trying to stop people from celebrating Christmas, it used the generic "happy holidays" as an all-inclusive for anyone who wants to celebrate Christmas, Hanukkah or whatever holiday they have around that time of the year, including New Year's.

The frackus continued with the controvercy over the Happy Eid al-Adha included in their American Thanksgiving greeting. But Best Buy says there will be Christmas, Hanukkah etc along with the generic happy holidays.

Home Depo hasn't banned the word "Christmas" from its site.

Walmart encourages the "Happy holidays" thing, but again, not to kill Christmas, and the boycott over it ended long ago.

No, there is no freakin' stupid Christmas tree tax! Da Big Bad Bama is not out to tax you for buying a Christmas tree! This whole thing is a big honking lie, and while I'm embarrassed to say the conservative internet community swallowed this one whole yet again, I'm also laughing at the fact that the mainstream media also bought it, hook, line and sinker.

It's not a tax. It's a fee, and it's not even a fee we pay. It's something the tree growers pay, and it's something they support, as it goes into supporting their operation.

So I don't know which twit decided to start the hoax, but hope they get a pile of coal under their own tree, and I'm being nice by wishing it to be coal. I am frustrated, at the end of my rope with this stuff continuing to turn up every Christmas season!

My first reaction when I saw the words "Christmas Tree Tax" blace across my screen were to shake my head and rroll my eyes, because it's sure to be another stupid chain letter hoax that plays on petrified Christians and conservatives everywhere.

So rest assured, it's fake. Don't spread that chain letter.

No, Xmas is not disrespectful to the meaning of Christmas. I used to believe it was when I was younger, but live and learn. It is a very interesting read.

Think you're saving your religion, yourself, the world etc. with holiness and inlightenment by passing on these chain letters?

Well, you're not!

you're only making the world a little unhappier at Christmas every time you restart this agenda to force everyone to say "Merry Christmas" only... You are sending Christians an unnecessary depressing message that says "The world is against you and trying to take away Christmas with its political correctness." You are causing some Christians to get unnecessarily upset, up in arms, believing it, and panicking to save Christmas through needless boycotts and spreading of chain letters that reflect badly on Christians and gain us no additional friends.

Why Do People Believe These Rumors? This article speculates about the conflicts concerning over-the-top political-correctness and infringements on people's rights, and the ugly rumors sparked by these conflicts.

Site with some discussion about the aggravating "Rescue your religion!" chains that come throughout the Christmas season

Look, people, all that hype yelling "They're gonna ban Christmas!" comes from chain letters.

Know what chain letters are?

They are those bogus things that tell you Bill Gates will give you millions for passing on an email, that your crush will call you at midnight, and you will live forever in unimaginably happy wedded bliss if you forward a message and you'll be the most unlucky, ugly, and dead person and that God will be ashamed of you for failing to forward it.

Know what people are really thinking about you for passing on these chain letters?

They think you are ridiculous, and you are being rightfully laughed at for being sheeple lead around by anonymous hoax originators who know exactly which of your buttons to push.

We Say Merry Christmas

This blogger and others discuss why it is that people seem so threatened, wanting the holidays all to themselves. One post in particular was very interesting, pointing out that the hysteria is coming from not just Christians.

Yes!

It isn't just Christians engaging in chain letter panic around Christmas and the new year.

This blogger saw a chain letter from a Muslim friend that is of the same stripe as all the frantic "They're out to get your religion!" virals that target Christians. Replace Christian with Muslim, make it an anti-Christmas/new year rant, and there you have it. See? It isn't just Christians guilty of religious/political panic and misinformation chain letter activity on the net.

This next example is another chain targeting Muslims, but the Muslim who posted it, smashed it in outrage, deeply offended that chain letters are circulating, exploiting his religion and making lies and mockery of it.

This reaction to a chain letter is exactly what Christians should be feeling about the chains that abuse Christianity in the same way.

Merry Christmas or Happy Holidays an excellent blog post by Kristin! If you get prompted to connect to Twitter, you can hit cancel and you should be directed right to the blog entry.

Thank you, Greg Taylor, for an excellent post It's OK To Say Happy Holidays

Hurrah! This really made my day! Thank God there are some of us starting to speak up and refuse to let ourselves get pushed around by chain letters that are actually making a mockery of Christianity.

You know the ones, right?

Christmas Gullibility Test

Well, in any case, Christians especially, we need to show a lot more strength and faith in what we believe and who we believe in, and stop passing on paranoid religious chain letters.

So this whole supposed "war on Christmas" thing needs to die. Bill O'Reilly, GIVE IT UP ALREADY!

Instead of spreading alarmism and trying to get people boycotting various places, keep Christmas alive and well by demonstrating the spirit in which Christmas is intended. Go ahead and say/write "Merry Christmas" and stop crying over "happy holidays" ignore it and continue showing kindness, joy, love, and all that is the Christmas spirit regardless of what greetings you see around you, but don't just say "Merry Christmas" to make some statement about being a warrior in the great epic battle against political correctness. That can be put on hold until after Christmas and life goes back to the usual routine. Even then, for the love of honesty and integrity, don't use chain letters to fight your battles!

And as for you, "SayMerryChristmas" whoever you are, you and others like you need to stop dredging this faithless, lacking-in-Christmas-spirit agenda up every year to put a real downer on Christmas, spawning evermore forwards that target Christians. You are not showing Christian or Christmas spirit by trying to stir up fear and hate of a generic greeting that does not specifically mention Christmas and anybody who happens to use it.

Christmas is supposed to be a time of kindness, love, warmth, hope, peace, encouragement, joy. It is not meant for borrowing trouble and creating an atmosphere of distrust and despair, especially when it's based on reactionist statements that are, at best, misunderstanding, and at worst, outright fabrication.

Now, repeat after me:

They are not going to murder Christmas!

The World Is Not Out To Damn Christmas!

The Obamas are not out to ban Christmas.

Places that put "Happy holidays" are not out to quash Christmas.

And stop believing in and passing on chain letters.

It's time we Christians stood up for our right to have a happy christmas and told Fox News to cut out the bad habit of passing off stuff found in far-right chain letter hoaxes as information, and to tell Bill O'Reilly to stop trying to steal Christmas!

The best way to have your Christmas and keep it is to ignore the anti-theist fun dies and their attention-seeking activities especially around Christmas.

I do not want to see anything containing the words "political correctness" "politically correct together with "Christmas" in the same article again, most definitely not as a "repost"/"share"/"fwd" viral scheme, and I do not wish to discuss or high5 anyone who proudly proclaims in person that they are on the bandwagon to stamp out "happy holidays" because they think it's trying to take Christ out of/(annihilate Christmas. I do not want the various rip-offs of "Night Before Christmas" not the lonely soldier version nor the politically correct Santa version. I do not want those 12 days of Christmas viral jokes, stale, stinky old drunken Christmas fruit cake recipes, the same old dreaded Snowball chain that keep going around every year. I do not want forwarded touching Christmas glurge stories about Bobby/ie Decker's new coat, or the Angels in Indiana tale, or silly ones about Nativity plays gone wrong or the one about the same gift that kept getting re-given to various people. I don't want them in my inbox, I don't want them cluttering up the social network news feeds, I don't want to run across them as reposts on blogs or forums, let's be clear about this. People, please! For the love of originality, NO MORE HOLIDAY VIRALS AKA CHAIN LETTERS!

The sad truth is, if you get some supposedly hilarious joke, religious rant, or touching tale from a friend, it's a chain letter that they got from their friend, who got it from their friend, so many were roped into spreading it long before it got to your friend and made its way to you.

You can look these things up on TruthOrFiction.com, Urbanlegends.about.com, Hoax-slayer.com, and Snopes.com to name a few sites. You can also key in certain phrases from anything some poor sap sends you into a search engine. You'd be surprised to find how many results of the same supposedly special little snowflake your friend just got heart-yanked into sharing, had already been reposted, debunked, recycled, reposted and re-debunked from here to infinity… That's how you can be sure it's for the best you don't "share" it any further.

Don't expect me to hang around you much if you indicate you really don't like Christmas all that much because you think it's all about glorifying an all too commercial consumeristic culture..

Don't bother me with any arguments at all about why you think Christmas shouldn't be celebrated. It doesn't matter if Jesus was probably not born on Dec. 25. It doesn't matter that the Romans used to celebrate Saturnalia at that time of the year. It doesn't matter which came first, the celebration of one or the other. It doesn't matter if various familiar Christmas decoration and tradition got their roots in ancient pagan cultures. It doesn't matter if they play "Jingle Bells" in the mall or "Silent Night."

Stop with all the grousing, stop trying to borrow trouble, and let it be. You have all the rest of the year to debate this or grumble about that, so make the best of things at this special time of the year.

Take a lesson from this post, It's Christmas, Relax and Enjoy It!

Finally, I leave you with this article, where Fox was caught disgracing itself by ignorantly perpetuating the "War On Christmas" including the "Holiday Trees" hoax, and got schooled by Priest Jonathan Morris, who says basically what I've been so frustrated trying to convey all along, and we need all Christians to follow suit with, that this "war on Christmas" is silly, and not at all what the loving peaceful spirit of Christmas is all about.

Yes. It is high time to completely drop the "war on Christmas" and stop perpetuating any and all Christianity-killing hoaxes. this priest's words are music to my ears, and the more Christians wake up and abandon the path Fox has been trying to lead them down, the better.