In My Inbox: Merry Christmas, Ya NAZI!

AFA wrote me and a zillion other people an email quoting a Gap ad:

"Two, Four, Six, Eight, now's the time to liberate
Go Christmas, Go Hanukkah, Go Kwanza, Go Solstice.
Go classic tree, go plastic tree, go plant a tree, go add a tree,
You 86 the rules, you do what feels just right.
Happy do whatever you wanukkah, and to all a cheery night.
Go Christmas, Go Hanukkah, go whatever holiday you wanukkah."

"Did you notice it?" AFA President Tim Wildmon asks. "Gap compares Christmas to the pagan holiday called 'Solstice.' Solstice is celebrated by Wiccans who practice witchcraft!" Enclosed was a button for supposedly outraged people like me to click to return a "survey" to the organization. In closing, I was told about how very important it was for me to forward this email to ALL my family and friends. Nevermind that most of 'em are secular liberals who would probably laugh before hitting the "delete" button.

Though I've got to say that even the little quote from the Gap ad bothers me in that it implies that all holidays are the same. But I happ

Ohh, my word. I'm just stopping there. Everything I type after this point is just coloured by what I just got in an email... As I started typing this post... what should happen but I received another email linking the anti-Christmas crowd to the Nazis. No, really. Read it. It defies imagination. I'm going to tell D that maybe the money we've been giving these people should go elsewhere next year. I'm sorry to say that my funds (and, like, many other people's) helped produce this:

"The Nazis hated Christmas for one simple reason: it celebrates the birth of a Jew. By the way, this suggests a new tack in our discussion about Christmas. The left hates Christmas because it celebrates the birthday of the first Christian. But isn't there something faintly anti-Semitic about that?"

YOWIE!! So... GOD INCARNATE is a "Christian?" I thought a Christian was one who recognized that he's a sinner (Jesus, the sinner?) and has repented of such (Jesus, repented??) and turned to God's Son for forgiveness because of His atoning death on the cross (Ok, that would be soooo circular...) and etc. etc. You get my point. The doctrine there is so wonky that no way they can point fingers at the secular Gap company.

So anyway, if you don't like Christmas, you're not just a conscientious objector fellow Christian who doesn't think the season as celebrated is entirely Godly... YOU'RE A NAZI!! Wow. SOMEONE is gonna boot me in the comment section with a big goose step, but ohhh well. I don't mind glorifying God through the Christmas holidays because God OWNS ALL THE SEASONS, and I don't mind the lights and the trees, and I don't mind the presents, but let's not kid ourselves about the real "rea$on for the $ea$on" when shopkeepers run an ad. I mean, how many Ash Wednesday super-saver specials are there in YOUR local newspaper fliers each year?

I'm coming out of the closet on this one. Here's where the stones are really going to start flying: if it were completely up to me, there would not be any Christmas. I think it confuses people into thinking Jesus was born in December, and people get entirely too wrapped up in the present thing (ha ha). Not to mention that I have no clue about the proper etiquette and equivalent gift-giving and receiving. I'd rather just use Christmas as the "annual send out and receive a card" holiday and forget the expectations and the presents. Pressure off. D has put his foot down on that in the past, though. Yes, the children have to have presents and now, thanks to our generous neighbour, we have a tree and lights and everything. I think they might have thought us too poor to go buy a tree, and I didn't tell them the reason we never had more than a tabletop one was that I reallllly have some qualms about the whole thing. It's just so... worldly.

I'm going to try to think the best of the Gap people until I have evidence to believe otherwise, and I would *imagine* that they were trying to avoid exactly the kind of fight that AFA is picking. "Do whatever you want?" I would take that to mean that they don't care what you celebrate as long as you buy their stuff! They have families to support and care for, so go buy something. Hey, is your holiday in the list? "Whatever you wanukka" makes it a pretty broad list. They just want you to buy their stuff!

Now, what I was GOING to blog about was the fact that "do whatever you want" to ME is a very... um... ungodly sort of thing to start messing with with untold consequences, especially when you think of the interest on credit cards or what could happen if you did the wrong drug some night. Ok, back to holidays... I don't know that the Gap company is really advocating a hedonistic lifestyle. DO correct me if I'm wrong. I'm just of the opinion that maybe if we'd apply the same doctrinal tests to some of the crazy crap we sing on Sunday mornings in some churches that we'd have room to talk about a clothing store ad.

But NAZI??? If you don't like Christmas?? And... we Christians need to rigourously defend a Christianized Pagan holiday lest it get too... Pagan?? Am I crazy? Does this make ANY SENSE to you?

Man. I'm more than a little bewildered.