Happy Fucking Holidays
by J. Daniel Janzen

That special time of year is here again — Peace on Earth, Goodwill Toward Men and all that. The opening days of this holiday season, though, have been anything but peaceful, and inventories of goodwill have been sapped by an epic struggle of cultures with nothing less than the fate of our American civilization in the balance. Wild-eyed religious fanatics and freedom-loving capitalists are locked in mortal combat over the most fundamental of questions: Merry Christmas or Happy Holidays?

Shoppers embarking on the annual post-Thanksgiving spendathon may have paid little attention to the wording of the advertising circulars being trampled underfoot, but to more vigilant eyes, the message was unmistakable. No mere marketing slogan, the phrase "Happy Holidays" is an act of aggression against God-loving people everywhere, and has been proven scientifically to make baby Jesus cry. Sure, no one is trying to lock the churches or douse the Yule logs — yet. But if we can't count on our beloved big box stores for a hearty Merry Christmas, it's only a matter of time until the liberal Grinches are creeping down every chimney in the land to steal our stockings and force conversions to secular humanism. These are dark days indeed for America's tragically persecuted Christian super-majority.

As with most noble causes, the plight of beleaguered Merry Christmas-sayers has found a tireless champion in Bill O'Reilly, who has used his Fox News Channel bully pulpit to call for a boycott of Macy's, Target, Wal-Mart and other retailers more interested in hating Jesus than celebrating His birth. Evangelical pastors James C. Dobson and Jerry Falwell have put the weight of their organizations behind boycotts of their own. Undaunted by accusations of anti-Semitism, unashamed of the seeming xenophobia of their own rhetoric, these courageous crusaders fight to purify the season of the taint of alternate beliefs or viewpoints.

But the conspiracy is clearly deeper and more insidious than even John Gibson suggests in his essential expose, "The War on Christmas: How the Liberal Plot to Ban the Sacred Christian Holiday Is Worse Than You Thought." None other than FNC, Gibson's own employer, has been caught offering Holidaysist merchandise in its online store. On being called on this discrepancy by a gleeful swarm of lefty bloggers, FNC quickly brought its seasonal booty in line with the Christianist script — but it's impossible to say how much damage had already been done.

Even the White House itself has been caught with its Santa pants down. Although House Speaker J. Dennis Hastert had fought valiantly to restore the gaily lit tree on the West Lawn of the Capitol — known in recent years as the "Holiday Tree" — to its rightful moniker, First Lady Laura Bush heralded with the words, "I want to wish everybody happy holidays." Meanwhile, thousands of official White House cards were making their way across the land with the satanic script, "best wishes for a holiday season of hope and happiness" — and not a single mention of Jesus, Christmas or Fox.

Things have changed indeed since the simpler times so vividly portrayed in classic documentaries like "Miracle on 34th Street" and "A Christmas Story," when America's populace was unanimously Christian and there was no need for sensitivity to other groups. Schools thought nothing of staging Christmas pageants, towns erected crèches on public property and bands of believers freely walked the streets caroling their Christian joy for all to hear. But like so many cherished institutions, the month of December has been besieged of late by a specter even more frightening than the ghosts of Christmas Past, Present and Future combined: the spirit of inclusion.

Hanukkah was the first non-Christian holiday elevated to supposedly equal seasonal status, though it was something of a sham; a relatively minor Jewish festival, it at least offered the coincidence of gift-giving. Those African-Americans left unsatisfied by either Judeo-Christian option subsequently claimed Kwanzaa, and the greeting card companies rejoiced once again. The Dec. 23 feast of Festivus, minted in 1966, found millions of new adherents following the public confession of faith of Frank Costanza during a 1997 episode of Seinfeld. Now even the Islamic festival of Eid ul-Fitr has taken its place on a commemorative stamp issued by our own US Post Office. What's next — a holiday for Scientologists?

Thus, of the major themed holidays, Christmas is now unique in facing competition in the form of alternatives for those who feel alienated or excluded from the main event. Lonely hearts experience Valentine's Day as slow torture, traitors abhor the 4th of July and fans of the Detroit Lions have understandably come to dread Thanksgiving; but these days, even Jews, atheists, Muslims and nihilists feel free put their own spin on the month of December.

But perhaps this holiday inflation isn't entirely a bad thing. With no offense intended to O'Reilly, Dobson and the like, maybe the spirit of Christmas — sorry, the season — should be accessible to anyone, through whatever metaphor they're most at ease with. After all, it's a time of year when we could all use a little help.

As the days grow shorter and the shadows lengthen, the bleak winter landscape brings thoughts of decay, death and the prospect of keeping on-vacation schoolchildren occupied when it's ass-cold outside. Work is crazy with year-end deadlines and Secret Santa pressures. Invitations to holiday parties now carry an implicit dress code: pants of tweed or corduroy, itchy sweaters, nice shoes — a far cry from the flip-flops and Hawaiian shirts of long-ago summer cookouts. Smokers and other resolution-makers start counting down to the surrender of a cherished crutch or vice. There are gifts to buy, cards to send (or guiltily fail to, yet again), halls to deck, merriness to feign, with "Jingle Bell Rock" and "Same Old Lang Syne" making you want to kill yourself all the while ... Jesus H. Kwanzaa, where's that eggnog?

With so much on our red-and-green paper plates already, do we really need yet another source of seasonal angst? All year long, we've put up with alarmist accusations and partisan sniping from elected officials and talking heads. Now, as we prepare to consign 2005 to the history books, we face a choice. We can let paranoid demagogues get us all riled up over the correct language to use with cashiers and mailmen; or we can heed the example of thousands of home-for-the-holidays college students: double up on meds, smoke a bowl in the garage and pretend to get along. WWJD? Chances are, you'd find Him with the rakes and bicycles.

E-mail J. Daniel Janzen at dan at clownyard dot com.