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12.18.2006 ||> 'Tis the season to be militant and conformist
One of my friends from the Peace Corps is living in the US now after getting married to an American and obtaining her visa. Yesterday we finally got to talk after playing phone tag for about 100 years. The phone call had so many facets to it that it could be about 5 blog entries, but the first one was about the holiday season.
It is damn hard to find non-Christian holiday cards. Much more difficult than last year. Bashi is Muslim, so when she goes to find cards to send to her family for New Year's, it's especially difficult. I explained to her about last year and Bill O'Reilly's War on Christmas fakery, and managed to remember it as even more ridiculous in the telling. How did people get sucked into that?
I made it my mission this year to find the most secular of cards. I believe I have only bought 3 cards that even have the word "Christmas" in them. But I have also been to the third largest mall in America to do so. How many other people have that option?
I think some of it comes from the idea that non-Christians are somehow "offended" when Christians wish them a Merry Christmas or sing carols around them, or do any of that secular stuff that's dressed up as religion. I don't think any of us are, but I do find it disorienting, like someone is wishing me a Happy Father's Day in February. I'm never going to be a father, and it's not the day of the holiday, so why?
Something that crystallized it for me was this short clip of Good Morning America that I saw on Friday. Glenn Beck was on (which is why I only watched for a second), extolling his usual idiocies and saying that if someone non-Christian is wished a Merry Christmas, the proper response is "thank you." Well, of course, I always say thank you too, but with the same feeling that a Christian would have being wished a happy Ramadan. Or being wished a happy birthday in August. A bit perplexed, yes, but with the sentiment that the person was only saying it to be nice.
So, I'm not offended. Can I please have my nice, secular selection back?
Labels: friends, peace corps, uzbekistan
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