To start the year’s Christmas festivities (it is the 15th, after all), I’d like to point you to Lileks’ Backfence column from yesterday wherein he defends Christmas as an appropriate title for this current holiday. It’s peppered with the right amount of disdain and exasperation for the unfair short shrifting the name “Christmas” has gotten each year, daring to ask why other holidays that have formed around this time get to keep their names but Christmas is relegated to the nom de plume “Holiday Traditional”. Good question, James.

Am I offended that they name the other holidays by name? Of course not — no more than I’d be offended if a practitioner of those creeds wished me a happy whatever. This is America. Come one, come all. Frankly, I look forward to the day when the Mexican Day of the Dead is a national holiday; having a picnic in honor of departed relations is an improvement on, say, Arbor Day. Fifty years from now, we’ll all drive hovercars right up to the grave and grill some steaks. In any case, if someone wished me a Happy Whatever tomorrow, I’d be honored that they cared to include me. Why some companies are terrified of this idea I cannot imagine.

It’s as if there’s some crazy conspiracy to keep Christmas under wraps! And we all know the best way to hide something is to hide it in plain sight. So we put out the wrapping, the trim, the decorations, tinsel, candles, ginger spice candles, and all the advertising we can handle. Somehow, Christmas just seems to fade into the background, like a “Magic Eye” piece. Squint your eyes or cross them or gouge out your cornea like the directions say. Maybe it’ll pop out.
I expect we’ll continue to get this generic “Holiday Traditional” stuff until the very idea and name of “Christmas” is lost in the mists of mysterious legend, like the headless horseman, or $.10 movies.
“Once there was a holiday much like the one we celebrate today. It was called St. Criminy’s Day, where all the children were gathered together and if any of them were bad, they were all sent to work in the coal mines.”
“EWWWWWW!!!! What about the good children, grandpa?”
“Oh, they were allowed to do whatever they pleased for the next year, with no consequences! Why, they could mouth off to their parents, like you can now, steal candy from the convenience store, even stay up late and not do their homework.”
“What’s homework?”
“Oh, it was abolished back in 2020, after the Teen Riots of 2018. It’s something you kids would be doing right now if you weren’t on Holiday Traditional time.”
Okay, so I’m a pessimist. I don’t mean to be cynical, but kids these days. Heck, adults too. We all need a good beech stick whipping out in the toolshed, especially those whose responsibility it is to deck the malls with holiday identification materials. C’mon, call it “Christmas”, I dare ya! Scared? Buck buck bwaaack!
Yeah, thought so.
Happy Holiday Traditional to you too.