Juno News - December 25, 2022


The “War on Christmas” convo didn’t happen this year — did one side prevail？


Episode Stats

Length

3 minutes

Words per Minute

193.01773

Word Count

704

Sentence Count

34


Summary


Transcript

00:00:00.000 Whatever happened to the war on Christmas? Did it conclude? Did one side win? Or did it simply
00:00:06.960 drift away? A few weeks ago, I said to my colleagues, get ready for the onslaught of
00:00:12.720 war on Christmas stories and the debate that comes along with it. But I think I was wrong,
00:00:18.420 because I haven't really seen much discussion about the war on Christmas, and then the debate
00:00:23.080 about different issues that are categorized under the war on Christmas, and then that meta debate
00:00:27.940 that people end up having on social media where they say, what are you talking about? There is no
00:00:31.500 war on Christmas. It's all made up. It's not a thing. Well, what happened? Why did we not have
00:00:36.300 this conversation this year? Could it be that everybody just called every activity Christmas,
00:00:42.080 and everyone happily celebrated Christmas together in Canada? I'm not so sure about that part. Or
00:00:48.260 could it be that Christmas is like totally banned, and nobody talks about Christmas anymore? Well,
00:00:52.240 that's clearly not true either. What's going on here? I think I have something of an answer as I
00:00:57.860 unpack this cultural phenomenon here. I think that the war on Christmas has concluded at an
00:01:04.980 institutional level, but it lives on Christmas in the hearts and souls of Canadian families and
00:01:12.540 communities. Okay, what I mean by that is when we talked about war on Christmas stories, I feel like
00:01:16.760 for the most part, they were stories of institutions twisting themselves into pretzels for this sort of
00:01:23.280 phony baloney political correctness that not that many people actually believed in. So the idea that
00:01:28.060 you bring the Christmas tree to City Hall, and you call it a Christmas tree, but oh wait, it's offensive
00:01:32.960 to people who don't celebrate Christmas, so it has to be a holiday tree. For instance, the Christmas party,
00:01:38.040 not the Christmas party, the end of season party. Oh, and schools doing Christmas carol concerts. A lot of
00:01:44.520 schools I know of, they don't do these Christmas concerts. They call it holiday concerts, or you know,
00:01:50.280 end of term concerts, that sort of thing. But these are all institutions that are connected to government
00:01:55.240 or very large corporations that feel like they really need to be antiseptic and absolutely sanitize
00:02:01.300 everything. So I think the war on Christmas kind of did conclude in institutional settings, and it did
00:02:06.740 not go in Christmas's favor. We must not say the phrase Christmas. But clearly, regular folks are just chill
00:02:13.160 about it, and they always have been. And that's not just including people who celebrate Christmas with great
00:02:18.820 gusto, but people who don't celebrate Christmas. I mean, we all have examples, those of us who celebrate
00:02:23.820 Christmas, of friends, family, co-workers, neighbors who celebrate another holiday, like Diwali, for
00:02:29.100 instance. And Diwali comes along, and they talk to us about how they're celebrating Diwali, and maybe
00:02:34.360 they bring in some treats for us, and even invite us to join them in the celebrations. And that's cool.
00:02:39.880 I love doing that stuff, and everybody's happy to share in it. And then likewise, when Christmas
00:02:45.120 comes along, or another holiday that they don't perhaps share in, well, you say Merry Christmas,
00:02:49.960 and you even exchange some gifts and have some celebrations together, and it's cool. Everyone's
00:02:54.760 totally chill about it. So in a way, is it the end of the world that institutions have so sanitized
00:03:00.500 Christmas away? I mean, look, you got a tree in City Hall, it's a Christmas tree. Don't know why you
00:03:05.440 have to call it a holiday tree. But I think the good thing is regular folks, regular Canadians,
00:03:09.360 are just decent-minded. They're not as sort of passive-aggressive on these issues that I think
00:03:15.340 a lot of our leaders think they are. And we're all just happy to celebrate each other's holidays,
00:03:21.020 and to be happy with our own ones, to say Merry Christmas to each other with great pleasure.
00:03:27.220 So there you go. The war on Christmas, I don't know. We'll see what direction it heads in in years
00:03:32.600 ahead, but I think at least the folks are still fully on board with saying Merry Christmas.
00:03:37.760 What do you think?