My father is complaining. Pie and I have, apparently, ruined Christmas. The meaning is gone. According to my father, we have taken the Christ out of Christmas.
Um, I would like to remind all my readers that my father is an atheist. A Jewish atheist.
The crime? Last year, for Pie’s Daisy troop, our family hosted a Hanukkah party. In the interest of, as the school would put it, “cultural enrichment,” this year we will be Christmas Caroling. But the songs–at my request, to be honest–don’t actually invoke the name of Jesus. Because there are plenty of lovely holiday songs that aren’t religious.
My dad: What are you singing?
Pie: “Winter Wonderland.” “Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer.” “Frosty the Snowman.”
My dad: Those aren’t carols! Those are just Christmas songs.
Me: They are carols!
My dad: No, they’re not. Carols are religious. “Silent Night,” “Hark, the Herald Angel Sings,” “O Little Town of Bethlehem,” “Little Drummer Boy.” Those are Christmas carols.
Me: Wikipedia says, “A Christmas carol (also called a noël) is a carol (song or hymn) whose lyrics are on the theme of Christmas or the winter season in general and which are traditionally sung in the period before Christmas.”
My dad: Well, then it’s changed. Carols are supposed to be religious. You’ve completely missed the point of Christmas carols.
So, yes. Rick Perry is right.* We the Jews. We’ve done it. We’ve ruined Christmas. Our bad. Sorry!
*edited: My father didn’t get the Rick Perry reference. I’m referring to his horrific “Strong” video–which I won’t dignify with a link; if you haven’t seen it, you’ll have to Google it yourself–in which he says, “You don’t need to be in the pew every Sunday to know there’s something wrong in this country when … our kids can’t openly celebrate Christmas or pray in schools.” For the record, my favorite rebuttal to this is actually the one made by Jesus, himself! (And I don’t mind linking to that one.)
