Marching as to war....

Sarah Palin has re-started the war on Xmas with her new book (about her more below), but it's the sentiments inspired by this "war" that interest me.  As she says:  “The phrase ‘war on Christmas’ sounds like an oxymoron. I mean, how can there be a war about the holiday that celebrates the Prince of Peace?"  I dunno, but somehow they manage it:

This is actually a bit more blunt than the sign I saw one year.  It was in a small East Texas town I was driving through.  It was one of those moveable road-sign signs owners can stick letters on to form their own message.  The Yuletide (this was actually just after Thanksgiving) message outside this small business read:  "WE SAY MERRY CHRISTMAS!"  The "Dammit!!" was strongly implied.

There's more of this out there than I imagined (but why am I not surprised?).  Apparently you can send this as a card to your friends at Christmas:

Which really reflects the festive spirit.  Or you can share your sentiments around town with this on your car bumper:

I always just preferred putting a wreath on the front of mine; or maybe those antlers with the red nose for a hood ornament.   Bumper stickers are so year 'round, donchaknow?  Sadly and inevitably, everyone gets sucked into it:

Except, of course, those are the very words that end "A Charlie Brown Christmas" every year.

And no, the "War on Christmas" is not limited to signs and cartoons:

Last December, my 8-year old daughter was very excited about her upcoming Christmas Party at her school. However, she was very confused one day when she brought home a letter from her teacher informing her mother and me that the annual event would now be referred to as a 'Holiday Party' and gave us a set of rules to abide by on the day of the event. We were told that the school was discouraging students from wearing the colors red or green in order to be sensitive to other students, and that the phrase 'Merry Christmas' should be replaced with generic greetings such as 'Happy Holidays' or 'Season's Greetings' on any 'holiday' cards. This may come as no surprise to those of us who have witnessed this trend in recent years, but I can tell you it didn't make a whole lot of sense to our daughter. I guess it's never too early to be forced to teach your child about the absurdity of political correctness.

Being in the Texas Lege, the easily offended Mr. Bohac got a law passed, a law that is now going to be rigorously enforced:

One, it's circulating an online petition and asking those who sign to share a summary of the Merry Christmas Law with their school districts. Two, it's monitoring school districts' compliance with the law by crowdsourcing reports on how they're doing.

"No student in Texas should fear exercising their religious freedom at school," the group writes. Instead, they should fear God and praise His only begotten son.

And the law should make sure they do, amirite?  I can only weep thinking of the 1st Amendment suits these school districts are being set up for.  Because this is the website for the "Merry Christmas Bill" which includes insights like this:

“YES, KEEP Christmas in our schools! I still remember being an angel in my first grade Christmas Pageant... which was a PUBLIC school. KEEP America, American—with the values of our Founding Fathers in tact.”

Men who were Deists and some, like Jefferson, who even denied the divinity of Jesus (he cut the nativity stories out of his "Jefferson Bible").  Yeah, those Christmas values.  And there are, as of the day I looked, 8 "Tales of Christmas Past."  Clearly a landslide of sentiment in favor of a good old fashioned white Christmas.   And it all certainly brings Christmas much closer to a person...

Speaking of confusion and the holiday season, does Sarah Palin even listen to what she says?  Her opening salvo on this year's "War on Christmas" was a speech at the Iowa Faith & Freedom Coalition's fall fundraiser where she noted that “everywhere it seems that we see that faith, religious freedom is under attack… and it’s censored.”  Which I guess is why I had so much trouble finding these pictures, or why her book didn't get published.  But the best part of her speech was when she tried to connect Xmas to government programs she doesn't like:

Palin warned the audience that they were up against liberals who would offer “a lure of free stuff.”

But she told Sean Hannity that "There are double standards being applied to those who wish to celebrate Christmas, for instance, in a traditional way.” And isn't that precisely the "traditional Christmas" she wants, one that offers the lure of 'free stuff'?

It's so hard to tell the players without a scorecard.
 
Still, if we are to go to war on a sentiment, I am sympathetic to anything that would keep this song from going through my head:

Although I think most people would secretly agree with this, making this card too true to be good:

Even if I did mean it, I wouldn't wish it to y'all yet, since Thanksgiving isn't even over.  Right, Sarah?

So until it's time to, and if I fail to remember, or feel stifled by the oppressive forces of political correctness, just remember the 1960's Boy Wonder speaks, in impeccable fake Ye Olde Englishe script, for me as well, and it will finally be: