Even before the yearly Thanksgiving celebrations have commenced, a yuletide tradition has begun again in earnest. The Christian Right, labouring to find another rallying issue for Conservatives to come together on, have taken up the cause of defending Christmas from the evil doers. Not content with an 85 percent majority Christian population, the Conservative face of religion in this country demands that Jesus be in every single advertisement across the country. Because, of course, Jesus approved of low prices. Failing this, the Right has decided that the other fifteen percent of Americans have started a “War on Christmas,” and have taken up arms to defend her clove-scented loins from the despoiling Atheist masses.
What does the future of this most serious of war zones look like? In years past, I’ve tried to answer that question. But for the last two years, I’ve sat on the sidelines. . . No longer! This blog will once again dedicate itself to bringing you the answers, at great risk to the life and limb of this blogger. We will go out onto the front lines, embedded with the fighting men, in a series I have traditionally taken to calling:
Ho, Ho, Ho, Muthaf*cker!
It may seem early to some for such coverage, but already, the battle field is littered with the tiny, broken bodies of hapless elves. The streams run milky-yellow with discarded egg-nog. And the air is choked with the acrid fumes of burning cloves and pine boughs. The first battle? The Battle of Lowes.
The effervescent Jim Cramer of MSNBC reports today that an advanced Christian Right battalion, the American Family Association, has made first contact with the enemy in Lowe Stores. Here, the pusillanimous pagans have taken to referring to the cheap, wire and plastic simulated pine trees the company sells this time of year as “Holiday Trees.” What nerve! To sell the synthetic recreations of God’s own design without giving credit to God’s own baby boy!
But this early battle was, in fact, a rout. The Christians, firing their Redeemer Repeating Carbines with abandon, easily repelled the sinners and won a heartfelt, grovelling apology from the apostate reseller of mechanical implements.
The next battle, however, does not look quite so easy. The critter-bearing Tower of Babel known as PetSmart has seemed so far to flaunt Jesus’ natal jollification. This was an enemy much harder to sniff out than others, and so the AFA had to fall back on their signal corps’ ability to translate the transmissions of the enemy:
Because the seller of dog treats and cat scratching posts apparently isn’t doing enough to promote Christmas, AFA sent out an “ActionAlert” to its members titled “At PetSmart, Christmas doesn’t exist.”
“A search on PetSmart’s home page found 252 references to ‘holiday.’ It also found 43 references to ‘Christmas,'” the AFA says. “But, alas, this is very misleading. When you click on ‘Christmas’ you are directed to a page containing the same gifts you get when you search for holiday. Of all the items that pop up when you search for Christmas, not a single one mentions Christmas or is identified as being a Christmas gift.”
Will the PetSmart Pariah relent? Or will they insist that simply having a Santa (who is, after all, a practicing pagan) in their stores is adequate to honor the Christmas tradition? Will the Alpha and the Omega of rock-bottom pricing prevail? Will the Lamb Without Blemish give the Beastial Blackgards a Black I Am?
Stay tuned for the next correspondence. Until then, Ho-Ho-Ho, Muthaf*cka!
