While I do believe that some traditions should be put to rest, I also believe that a lot of tradition-bashers are poor-impulse-control cases with no actual tradition or culture of their own, save for a couple of Utne Reader platitudes, a mild revulsion for anything even vaguely Christian even if it aligns with their beliefs, a pro-pot slant and a half-formed belief in karmic payback. Standing for almost nothing, they tend to fall for just about anything.
(Sometimes it’s hard to believe I’m a liberal, isn’t it?)
Chris Baldwin’s summed it up pretty handily — and perhaps unintentionally — in today’s Bruno:
To borrow the line about Klansmen and Martin Luther King Day: C’mon, Bruno, how hardcore a secularist must you be to not want a day off?
Of course, those of us who celebrate Christmas would argue the exact opposite: here we took a beautiful Christian holdiay and destroyed it in usual corporate-like/well-intentioned-white-liberal fashion.
(There’s a Randroid who would take another tack and say “here we took a beautiful commerical holiday and destroyed it in usual religious fashion.” Haven’t we developed some kind of Ayn Rand repellent yet?)
In the end, I believe that intent counts. I’m certain there is no malice, no implicit “convert or die” message and no forcing of one’s beliefs on others when someone wishes someone else a happy Chanukah, Ramadan, Diwali, Kwanzaa, Saturnalia, Tet or even Festivus, the actions of certain vicious zealots notwithstanding. Balanced minds do not see any implied Hitler overtones at Oktoberfest, nor Hirohito/Tojo insinuations at the sushi house, and neither do they see the Crusades in Christmas. When people say “Merry Christmas”, most of them are really saying “Happy Holidays, and I’m celebrating them Christmas-style. You do your thing, and I’ll do mine. Come by for drinks.”
Merry Christmas, everyone.