Taking Christmas out of Christmas
Paul in Cannon Beach
4,703 Posts
More insanity from the PC thought police..
BETHEL, Wash. — A music teacher's decision to replace "Christmas" with "winter" in a recent concert carol has many residents up in arms.
Music teacher Mark Denison of Clover Creek Elementary School in Bethel, Wash., changed the lyrics in Dale Wood's "Carol from an Irish Cabin" to read: "The harsh wind blows down from the mountains and blows a white winter to me," reported the News Tribune.
Parent Darla Dowell, whose 7-year-old daughter sang the song, told the Tribune the decision was "absurd."
BETHEL, Wash. — A music teacher's decision to replace "Christmas" with "winter" in a recent concert carol has many residents up in arms.
Music teacher Mark Denison of Clover Creek Elementary School in Bethel, Wash., changed the lyrics in Dale Wood's "Carol from an Irish Cabin" to read: "The harsh wind blows down from the mountains and blows a white winter to me," reported the News Tribune.
Parent Darla Dowell, whose 7-year-old daughter sang the song, told the Tribune the decision was "absurd."
Comments
So, here's my theory, to return the true meaning of Christmas, Christians need to take a page from the Islamic handbook. We shout "Peace on Earth, good will toward men" as we burn down the schools that take Christ out of Christmas while brandishing our AK47s. Hey, maybe kidnap teachers, tie them up, video them with a knife to their throat and force them to confess allegiance to Christian principles and Santa Claus. (Sorry, even tongue-in-cheek I cannot suggest we go as far as murder as do the Islamists.) Then we'll hear Merry Christmas in the stores and unaltered Christmas carols will be sung in our schools and you will see creches outside courthouses.
Do they really think someone is going to sue them because they said "White Christmas"?
Oh, Oh, I'm not Christian!! They didn't sing about my holiday! I'm so emotionally distressed, only $50,000 can make me feel better!
I'm agitated today. Can you tell?
Merry Chrismakaza...or is it Happy Kwazmakahs?
Crate and Barrel has prohibited the term "Merry Christmas" from their stores. I wasn't going to buy anything from them anyways but there is one more reason to avoid their overpriced wares.
RT2
I have a pretty defined view on this whole subject due to the fact that I'm Jewish but was raised as a Christian. I get nostalgic when I hear carols, but I also get a little twitchy when the clerk at Target says, "Merry Christmas!" I think we need to keep traditions that are near and dear to each group's holidays active and in place. Singing "White Christmas" along with Bing Crosby pales when you start singing it as "White Holiday." Can you imaging asking Jews to replace "dreidel" with "top" in the dreidel song? "Top Top Top, I made you out of clay..." Not the same.
I think it's terrible that we try to encroach on each other's traditions and festivities. This is a special time of year for many religions - why not take this opportunity to celebrate our diversity and learn about the religions of the people around you? It just may ameliorate this whole problem of religious intolerance so prevalent in our society...
Oh I'm sorry, was I on a soapbox? I'm off.
Happy Whatever your Holiday Is!
With this weather we are having today and tomorrow, I hope we still have our annual "Christmas" parade on Saturday afternoon. I get to drive the vehicle pulling a trailer with Boy Scouts and members of our bank's Kid's Bank Club and the clubs offical mascot.. a 6 1/2 foot squirell. At least I will be sitting on heated seats with the heater blowing hard.
I noticed last weekend when I was shopping at Walmart that no holiday music of any kind was being played. It was all the regular stuff. I have been wondering if it is just that no one got around to changing it, or if it was a decision by the management not to play any in order not to offend anyone. I will be sorely disappointed in them if it is the latter.
I also noticed that the Salvation Army was not in front of Target again this year. However, our Target anchors a small strip mall. The bell ringer was on the sideawalk of the strip mall, as close to Target as she could get without actually being on their property.
We have really gone overboard with PC stuff, yet where do you draw the line? Wherever it is, I think we passed it quite awhile back.
Nae
Best get out of here and see how much ice in on my vehicle and how slick the roads are.
See ya,
My better half ventured out to a Wal-Mart Super Center yesterday and reported that they had Christmas/Seasonal music playing in their seasonal dept. with all the trees, gift wrap etc, but this was on a seperate CD player they had set up. When she checked out the cashier wished her a good evening. Not Happy Hoilidays or Merry Christmas.
If Walmart, BestBuy, and the schools have no place for Christmas, maybe that is for the best.
Perhaps its best if Christmas returns to our churches and places of worship. Perhaps the best place for Christmas is where it was meant to be all along: a quiet place in each human heart.
Fall on your knees! Oh, hear the angel voices!
O night divine, the night when Christ was born;
O night, O Holy Night , O night divine!
Excellent post Paul. It seems to me that the ethnocentrism of many Christian sects results in rhetoric that brings politics into churches and ultimately causes as many problems as were caused by the object of their rhetoric. I am a Christian but it seems to me many of us have left the admonition of the Bible that we should give alms in secret and to go home and pray in our closet. Thank God we still live in a country where we as well as other religions can do just that. I am fearful that our attitude has beome confrontational to the extent that some believe we must constantly stick it in someone's face. If this attitude becomes pervasive we will then start to lose the wonderful freedoms that we have.
Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays to all.
MOON in LA