I was supposed to be attending a conference in London for all Conservative Candidates today, but I seem to have got the dreaded cold lurgi with a vengeance. I've been fighting it off all week, but today I feel as if all the energy has been drained from my body overnight.Anyway, I shall be spending today entertaining you, dear Reader, as well as catch up on some much needed domestic administration. I suppose I'd better start writing some Christmas cards too. It would help if I had actually bought some. I shall also be following Jeff Randall's lead and throwing away any Christmas card which doesn't actually mention the word 'christmas'. So should you be sending me a card, please don't send one with 'Season's Greetings' or 'Holiday Wishes' inside. 'Merry Christmas' will do nicely!
Do get well soon, Iain. Sorry to hear you're unwell, but glad to hear you will be blogging.
ReplyDeleteOh dear.
ReplyDeleteOne hopes you haven't picked up the frightful ailment that prevented George Galloway from attending a dull conference earlier this week.
"I've got a cold" is the kind of excuse I'd give if I was faced with having to go to a boring Conservative party conference on a Saturday to be lectured by Maude, Letwin and Maples...
ReplyDeleteDon't you realise that using the word "Christmas" marginalises Muslims?
ReplyDeleteHave a heart. We live in a multi-clutteral society.
Get well soon BTW.
Poor thing. Fate didn't want you to go, perhaps? Hot water, Brandy and brown sugar, that'll sort it.
ReplyDeleteIain, Like the stoat, I'd usually recommend a large brandy but, in view of your previous thread ...
ReplyDeleteAs an alternative, I often find that a substantial curry (as hot as you can bear) sometimes works wonders.
If it's any comfort, I haven't written any Christmas cards yet either.
You have opened my eyes in this respect. I previously avoided Christmas at all costs because of the commercialism but now I have to face the fact that my religion has become a focus of hatred & intolerance, to be suppressed, along with other facets of - Englishness - in our case.
ReplyDeleteI agree that Christmas cards must clearly state the feast to which they apply. I shall now be much more of a Christian than I was and ready to require, at least, that any Govt. of mine does the same - and the bench of bishops can sharpen up their supine act as well - or be got out. Bliar's Christian version, and that of other politicos/prelates is a falsehood to be repelled at the place of their election. They should consider carefully.
Season's Greetings and Happy Holidays are an example of the law of unintended consequences.
ReplyDelete[Preface: I am pro-Jewish and I am a supporter of Israel.]
Wrinkled Weasel, you hit the nail almost on the head. This change in greeting was wrought by a particularly aggressive group of Jews who got together complaining loudly that their children ("it's for the ch-i-i-i-i-ldrennnnnn") felt left out at Christmas, whining, "Why doesn't Santa Claus bring toys for Jewish children?" Blah blah blah. Doubtless Jewish parents for generations had explained it was a Christian holiday and they would get toys later. Or they simply bought their own children toys as well so they wouldn't feel left out.
This lobby also invented a Jewish granny figure who was to fulfill same role as Santa Claus, but it never took off.
Anyway, Hanukka, a comparatively minor Jewish holiday in comparison to the meaning of Christmas, got elevated by this mean-spirited lobby into a major festival and competitor to Christmas because it fell around the same time. The Christians knew their complaints were ridiculous but what could they say? And they had the normal Christian attitude of not wanting to hurt anyone's feelings, and not to make anyone feel excluded.
This group brought pressure on greeting card companies to include them in "the holiday season". And little by little, the card companies also bent to pressure (and chance to sell more cards) and began doing "Season's Greetings" and "Happy Holidays" cards. And also, little by little, people started saying, "Happy holidays!" to their workmates and neighbours, in case any of them were Jewish and might be "offended".
Needelss to say, they were vigourously supported and promoted by the left. I believe they also petitioned the ACLU. This, I want to emphasise, wasn't mainstream Jews, who had never bothered one way or another about Christmas before, and still don't. It was a small, mean-spirited, aggressive group.
Anyway, political correctness was born.
yes Verity, I am not necessarily "pro-Jewish" but I am certainly aware that reporting of events in the ME is so anti-semitic as to be a travesty of justice - the BBC being a major culprit.
ReplyDeleteChristmas celebrates the birth of Jesus Christ. People can live with that or fuck off.
Any cards people get from me will have a Christian theme and not Robins, Santas or Sofas from DFS.
Yes, the Beeb and most of the MSM are so anti-Jewish it chills the blood. In fact, were it not for the blogs, we may never have known that the most recent conflict between Israel and Hezbollah was started with Hezbollah aggression and kidnap of Israeli soldiers. The Beeb and the rest of the MSM had twisted it, despite all the well-known facts, into being Israel's fault somehow.
ReplyDeleteAnd the AP was actually distributing faked photographs of "injured" children and bombed buildings that had never been bombed to the papers. Thanks to Charles at Little Green Footballs, this - and the fauxtography and fauxtographers - were accorded the blinding spotlight of some excellent forensic work. (For anyone not familiar with this story,Google "Green Helmet Man".)
Good luck finding cards that actually say "Merry Christmas" on them. I haven't found any in two years of looking, and am going to crack open the old cards my mother bought twenty years ago. Last year I just hand-wrote "Merry Christmas" but this year I'm just too lazy. I want the printer standing shoulder to shoulder in the war for Chrismas.
ReplyDeleteIncidentally, the War On Christmas has its own jihadi manual out, available from Lulu.com.
Depressingly, I've just read over on The Daily Mail (I was going to line a virtual litter tray with it, I swear!) that only one Christmas card in 100 contains any Christian imagery or message.
ReplyDeleteI find this appalling. How easily cowed the British are! Most of the commenters, though, expressed anger at this outrageous censorship.
And staunch enemy of islam though I am, I don't for a minute think any muslim gives a tinker's damn what Christians send to one another to celebrate Christmas. They're not the ones censoring cards and the media; its the poisonous Left.
Ahem, not all of us.
ReplyDeleteThe Relativists are an unfortunately dominant group among the left, but they're by no means the only one. And, fortunately, they appear to be losing power at least here in North America. Can't happen soon enough for us absolutists, I can tell you.
I am 51, I have smoked 60 cigarettes a day since I was 20, prior to that 20, till 18 an 40 till 20. I have been a binge drinker since I was 16 and nowadays have at least a bottle of wine a day. Until, 'Very' recently, I used to have sex with a woman at least 4 times a week. I blog almost daily and yet, I have never had a 'cold'
ReplyDeleteWhat am I doing wrong?
My sympathies are entirely with Iain. Men have to put up with much worse illnesses than women. We never catch ordinary colds like they do. Ours are always just like influenza and drain all the energy from our bodies. I think we're all very brave to put up with it.
ReplyDeleteYes, it is a scientific fact that the viruses and infections that attack men are larger, more macho and more difficult to fight off than the wimpy, frilly little viruses that attack women. That's why women are able to plough on despite infection and men have to go to bed with the covers pulled up over their heads.
ReplyDeleteThere's only one problem with the PC attack on Christmas - its pure nonsense.
ReplyDeletehttp://www.guardian.co.uk/christmas2006/story/0,,1967367,00.html
Have a look at this useful counterpoint argument. This indicates that people not having Christmas decorations / saying 'Happy Holidays' / the 8 year old use of 'Winterval' still being dragged up, has some other factors.
verity - your thoughts would be valued, as usual.
tis the season to be jolly
ReplyDeleteI'm suffering from a cold too but feel so much better now that Sunderland have climbed into the top half of the table, as far as cards go, I've taken to making my own (.pdf) and sending via email, because I'm a tight wad!
ReplyDeleteHope you got yours.
Keep fighting for Christmas!
You missed nothing at the conference except the confirmation of the inability of the Candidates' Dept to communicate
ReplyDeleteVerity really, religion is not a game. Channukah is Channukah and Christmas is Christmas. They don't compete, besides Jewish children get presents at Rosh Hashanah and on other occasions.
ReplyDeleteHowever, I do take your point about other Jewish people in the US and elsewhere, taking a certain point of view. They'd do themselves more good by going out on Christams Day to a secular old-age peoples home or helping distribute food to poor families.
BTW, there is nothing insignificant about Channukah. You ought to read about it before passing comment.
Verity really, religion is not a game. Channukah is Channukah and Christmas is Christmas. They don't compete, besides Jewish children get presents at Rosh Hashanah and on other occasions.
ReplyDeleteHowever, I do take your point about other Jewish people in the US and elsewhere, taking a certain point of view. They'd do themselves more good by going out on Christams Day to a secular old-age peoples home or helping distribute food to poor families.
BTW, there is nothing insignificant about Channukah. You ought to read about it before passing comment.
Jeremy Jacobs - Sorry you resent someone non-Jewish commenting on the Jewish pressure group that tried to elevate Chanukka to Christmas status so their children wouldn't feel "left out" at Christmas, but Jews have told me that it does not have the same significance to Jews as the birth of Christ has for us.
ReplyDeleteAlso, I don't like your impertinence in writing "Verity really, religion is not a game." and I'd like an apology.
I was offering a thoughtful comment on the way the celebration of the birth of Christ started to get melded into some sort of general Happy Holiday in the United States, and how this has been picked up on in Britain by the Left, under the guise of "not offending other faiths" - "other faiths" being a generic term for muslims.
I stressed throughout my post, which was calm and rational, that I am an admirer of the Jewish race and that I support Israel and was not trying to downgrade Channukah in the minds of others, in order to elevate Christmas. I was stating simple history. A very aggressive Jewish lefty group in the US decided to horn in on Christmas and colonise it, thereby diminishing its status.
I at no time said that Channukah was insignificant.
You say I "ought to read about it before passing comment". I wasn't commenting on Channukah, about which you rightly note that I know nothing. I was commenting on the determination to take Christmas away from Christians.
I wrote my post very carefully, aware that I was walking on eggshells and that I could inadvertently give offence. I stressed in my post that I was not referring to American Jews in general, but to one specific group.
I find it very aggravating that you came racing in with your hair on fire to tell me religion is not a game - and frankly see it as an attempt to shut down the discussion. This is what has happened in Britain under Labour. People do not bother to try to discuss anything, because the minute they make a point which someone else can pounce on as "controversial", someone will race in and try to shut down the discussion, as you have done.
Well, I'm not going to tolerate it. You either answer my courteously put arguments - if you can; and that is doubtful as I am speaking from knowledge - or apologise for reprimanding me for something I did not do.
One or the other.
The Guardian article is far from the last word on the subject. Even if the particular tabloid stories to which it refers were/are untrue, there are other ones which it (probably deliberately) fails to mention. On the very day the Guardian article was published, a reader in Sheffield wrote to the Independent to complain that his local SureStart scheme had sent out a card wishing people happy 'winter celebrations'.
ReplyDeleteAs a pagan who celebrates the winter solstice, I'm not in the least offended by Christmas.