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Bah, HumbugThe horrors of December in a one-party state.

By Christopher Hitchens
Posted Tuesday, Dec. 20, 2005, at 12:35 PM ET
Illustration by Mark Alan Stamaty. Click image to expand.

I used to harbor the quiet but fierce ambition to write just one definitive, annihilating anti-Christmas column and then find an editor sufficiently indulgent to run it every December. My model was the Thanksgiving pastiche knocked off by Art Buchwald several decades ago and recycled annually in a serious ongoing test of reader tolerance. But I have slowly come to appreciate that this hope was in vain. The thing must be done annually and afresh. Partly this is because the whole business becomes more vile and insufferable—and in new and worse ways—every 12 months. It also starts to kick in earlier each year: It was at Thanksgiving this year that, making my way through an airport, I was confronted by the leering and antlered visage of what to my disordered senses appeared to be a bloody great moose. Only as reason regained her throne did I realize that the reindeer—that plague species—were back.

Not long after I'd swallowed this bitter pill, I was invited onto Scarborough Country on MSNBC to debate the proposition that reindeer were an ancient symbol of Christianity and thus deserving of First Amendment protection, if not indeed of mandatory display at every mall in the land. I am told that nobody watches that show anymore—certainly I heard from almost nobody who had seen it—so I must tell you that the view taken by the host was that coniferous trees were also a symbol of Christianity, and that the Founding Fathers had endorsed this proposition. From his cue cards, he even quoted a few vaguely deistic sentences from Benjamin Franklin and George Washington, neither of them remotely Christian in tone. When I pointed out the latter, and added that Christmas trees, yule logs, and all the rest were symbols of the winter solstice "holidays" before any birth had been registered in the greater Bethlehem area, I was greeted by a storm of abuse, as if I had broken into the studio instead of having been entreated to come by Scarborough's increasingly desperate staff. And when I added that it wasn't very Tiny Tim-like to invite a seasonal guest and then tell him to shut up, I was told that I was henceforth stricken from the Scarborough Rolodex. The ultimate threat: no room at the Bigmouth Inn.

This was a useful demonstration of what I have always hated about the month of December: the atmosphere of a one-party state. On all media and in all newspapers, endless invocations of the same repetitive theme. In all public places, from train stations to department stores, an insistent din of identical propaganda and identical music. The collectivization of gaiety and the compulsory infliction of joy. Time wasted on foolishness at one's children's schools. Vapid ecumenical messages from the president, who has more pressing things to do and who is constitutionally required to avoid any religious endorsements.

More cartoons from Mike Luckovich.


And yet none of this party-line unanimity is enough for the party's true hard-liners. The slogans must be exactly right. No "Happy Holidays" or even "Cool Yule" or a cheery Dickensian "Compliments of the season." No, all banners and chants must be specifically designated in honor of the birth of the Dear Leader and the authority of the Great Leader. By chance, the New York Times on Dec. 19 ran a story about the difficulties encountered by Christian missionaries working among North Korean defectors, including a certain Mr. Park. One missionary was quoted as saying ruefully that "he knew he had not won over Mr. Park. He knew that Christianity reminded Mr. Park, as well as other defectors, of 'North Korean ideology.' " An interesting admission, if a bit of a stretch. Let's just say that the birth of the Dear Leader is indeed celebrated as a miraculous one—accompanied, among other things, by heavenly portents and by birds singing in Korean—and that compulsory worship and compulsory adoration can indeed become a touch wearying to the spirit.

Our Christian enthusiasts are evidently too stupid, as well as too insecure, to appreciate this. A revealing mark of their insecurity is their rage when public places are not annually given over to religious symbolism, and now, their fresh rage when palaces of private consumption do not follow suit. The Fox News campaign against Wal-Mart and other outlets—whose observance of the official feast-day is otherwise fanatical and punctilious to a degree, but a degree that falls short of unswerving orthodoxy—is one of the most sinister as well as one of the most laughable campaigns on record. If these dolts knew anything about the real Protestant tradition, they would know that it was exactly this paganism and corruption that led Oliver Cromwell—my own favorite Protestant fundamentalist—to ban the celebration of Christmas altogether.

No believer in the First Amendment could go that far. But there are millions of well-appointed buildings all across the United States, most of them tax-exempt and some of them receiving state subventions, where anyone can go at any time and celebrate miraculous births and pregnant virgins all day and all night if they so desire. These places are known as "churches," and they can also force passersby to look at the displays and billboards they erect and to give ear to the bells that they ring. In addition, they can count on numberless radio and TV stations to beam their stuff all through the ether. If this is not sufficient, then god damn them. God damn them everyone.

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Christopher Hitchens is a columnist for Vanity Fair.
Illustration by Mark Alan Stamaty.
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Remarks from the Fray:

…Once upon a time, there was a Christian holy day upon which a Mass was held to honor the birth of Christ. It was a day of worship preceded by a four-week period of somber reflection known as Advent. For political reasons, this mass was grafted onto a Bacchanalian Roman holiday known as Saturnalia, as well as various pagan celebrations of the winter solstice as the faith spread through Europe. The public celebration of Christmas has been a theological mess for many centuries, but in Western Europe decorations were traditionally put up on Christmas Eve and the Christmas holiday was celebrated through "Twelfth Night" (January 5th) on the eve of Epiphany, the holiday which actually celebrates the adoration of the Magi and the gifts presented to the Christ child. The season of Advent, by contrast, was intended to be quiet and austere.

The current American protestant cultural regime, which knows nothing and cares little about history, theology or church traditions, has completely bastardized Christmas into a season of excessive shopping, insipid music, and tacky decorations celebrating the secular myth of Santa Claus that begins on the day after Thanksgiving and begins hinting at its arrival by November 1st. The only thing this holiday has in common with sacred tradition is the name... though God forbid anyone on the religious right hears you refer to December 25th by any other name.

Personally, I enjoy many of the American Christmas traditions, and I think Mr. Hitchens could probably stand to lighten up a bit and absorb the oft-quoted lines about peace on earth and goodwill toward one's fellow men and women. Nobody likes a Scrooge.

But if there's anything that gets my goat, it's the sanctimonious idiots who claim there's a "War Against Christmas" on the grounds that Our Lord's Most Holy Shopping Season has fallen victim to evil secularists who would have us believe that all those pine trees, inflatable snowmen, electric reindeer, big-screen-TV-sales and socks hung over the fireplace can be accurately described as a "holiday season" and not merely a faithful celebration of the birth of Christ.

May God bless them, every one, and shake some sense into them while He's at it.

--ShriekingViolet

(To reply, click here)


As much as having tinsel up around Halloween puts me in a Cromwellian mood - but out of dour annoyance, not overdone piety - this column is nothing more than the usual anti-Christian nonsense. Whenever a petty fool starts using these sort of "constitutionally required to avoid any religious endorsements" arguments, you know that secularism is bubbling up from beneath any claims of other motivations. As for his being upset that churches are tax-exempt... anybody who wants the state to be in charge of processing not only all our income but all our gifts and generosity really needs to get his head examined.

--BenK

(To reply, click here)


Back when my ancestors were painting themselves blue and hanging various choice bits of their enemies after tasting, as well as other offerings to and effigies of our gods, among the branches of the nearest sacred grove--call them all the stars and planets, little lambs and golden fleeces, hanging on the Rood of Time--they were quite incensed to be told that from then on The Baby was going to rule the day of their most knock-down-drag-out-party of the year. No more blood and consuming fires! The candy, banknotes and ipods stuck to the new trees didn't mean much to them, then....

I'm still quite incensed, and I don't just mean frankincense and myrrh! So, Chris, here's a couple gulps of spiked punch, empty bottle flung at the devil's head, and a Happy Bah-humbug! to you, too!

Now--where's the peanut-butter fudge?

--Danaos

(To reply, click here)

(12/22)

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