By RON SCOTT SMITH
And so this is Christmas. You came here for opinion, ok, so here’s one. John Lennon’s “Happy Xmas (War is Over)” is the best Christmas song. Really know how to stir things up around here, don’t I?
But when I heard that beautiful thing coming through the speakers over there at Rite-Aid when I was picking up a bottle of Aspirin way back on the day after Halloween, the headache only got worse. You think they could maybe wait until the pumpkins have fully rotted away before they throw the fruitcakes at us? Can we at least get the bellies full over Thanksgiving before the pockets get empty over Christmas? Might just as well start stringing the lights up on the Fourth of July if you get my gist.
But I come to praise Christmas, not to bury it. It’s under siege in case you haven’t noticed. It seems the whole red- American, “right-radio” contingent, led by the inexorable Bill O’Reilly, is on Red Alert-ablaze — having found the next perfect storm to blowhard across the American airwaves to keep the sky falling, the nation divided, the faithful tuned, and the revenues pouring in. The perfect storm they’ve found is that somebody’s messing with Christmas, and nobody messes with Christmas, see?
For instance, the Federated Department Store chain that is mostly Macy’s, has ordered employees not to say “Merry Christmas” to customers, and managers not to display “Merry Christmas” in any form. New York City’s Mayor Bloomberg is compelled to call their official city tree, not a Christmas one, but a “holiday” one. The Festival of Lights Parade in downtown Denver forbade a local church from rolling a float with Jesus on it down Main Street. Elementary and middle schools across the nation have banned religious themes from their holiday recitals, and now get this — O’Reilly just reported something about how in Vatican City of all places, the likeness of baby Jesus has been replaced by Little Red Riding Hood at some schools. Only the big, bad wolf would huff and puff and mess with Christmas like that.
Upon further review, however, from one who loves and cherishes it, maybe the time has come for Christmas to be messed with a little. Jesus himself might very possibly say, “Maybe you could all calm down a little bit about this birthday thing of mine.” He might then very well add, “Don’t throw ‘Silent Night’ out there before the leaves have even turned, just so you can start raking in the bucks as soon as righteously possible.”
But the current gripe going around about Christmas goes deeper than its gross over-commercialization. Not just Scrooges and big bad wolves, but many decent Americans are beginning to get just a little bit nervous about where this sudden new wave of religious fervor might be headed, and they may be thinking — what better place to slow it down than right here in the Yuletide? Separation of church and state is not a concept dreamed up by the newly-exposed, derelict, leftist, elitist, anti- American, liberal-biased media (did I get in all the pejoratives?) in order to slide us down that greasy slope straight into hell. To the contrary, it’s one of our stalwart founding principles, one that keeps us from taking that slide. It sets us apart from those we’ve sent our underpaid and overworked warriors out there to fight to the death against.
You want religion coming into play in the governance of your nation? Radical Muslims have that thing down to the “T,” as in Taliban. That holier-than-thou bunch ran the training grounds for guys who would then go out and fly planes into skyscrapers for the higher cause, remember? We didn’t care much for the mixture of religion and state in that case, did we? But it’s ok here because we’ve got it right, right?
Could the fundamentalist Shiites, who stand poised to take control of Iraq in the upcoming election we’ve spilled our precious blood to make happen, cite the institutionalized rape of children by the highest practitioners of Christianity — Catholic priests — as a reason to question whether we do indeed have it right?
Do Muslims think Jerry Falwell is more righteous than Osama Bin Laden? Do you? Just asking, because honest to God, I don’t know. The way he hobbles around in those caves over there in the sandals and robe, long hair and beard, walking stick in hand, with his millions of followers and believers, would it be shocking to find he is worshipped some 2000 years from now? Worldwide terrorist or no worldwide terrorist, holy leaders all get their start somewhere.
Who knows, maybe a guy like John Lennon has a shot at that revered status too. He got blown away, like they all seem to. “Give peace a chance,” and “all you need is love,” he said over and over, and sometimes it’s the simple notions that last and grow, and grow, through the ages. Just ask Jesus. (To reach Ron Scott Smith, )
Originally published in the Santa Monica Daily Press print edition on December 16, 2004. Read the original PDF.