The Daily Escape:
River Bann, Northern Ireland
Wrongo isn’t sure how many of you are Spotify users, and it isn’t clear whether Spotify is a true barometer of America’s opinions. But, if you look at Spotify’s “Charts” page for Christmas Day, 2017, this is what you see: Nine of the top ten songs streamed were Christmas songs, with the exception being #10, Post Malone’s “rockstar”.
And the next ten were all Christmas songs. And from #21-30, nine were Christmas songs. From #31-40, six were Christmas songs.
Mariah Carey dominated with her “All I Want For Christmas Is You” at number one, with daily plays of 2,075,827 and cumulative plays of 311,319,704. Brenda Lee was #2. Even Burl Ives makes the top ten at #7 with “A Holly Jolly Christmas”, among Wrongo’s least favorite Christmas tunes.
But Trump says that we have a War on Christmas; that it has been stolen by godless, PC elites. The fear that Christmas is “under attack” has been a recurring phenomenon in the US for the better part of the last century.
But we should see that the real war is elsewhere. Trump should take a minute and understand that legally, Christmas isn’t a Christian holiday in America. Congress passed a bill in 1870 making Christmas a national holiday. The NYT wrote about this in 2013: (emphasis by Wrongo)
If you read the language of the bill, it’s clear that Congress chose dates commonly celebrated as holidays by the American people, not for religious reasons but because of a history of recognition and celebration on those dates…they did not deny religious association with two of the dates, Dec. 25 and Thanksgiving. But the religious association with these days was not the reason behind proposing them as holidays.
Congress got it right in 1870. We get a holiday on Dec 25, and it’s “commonly called Christmas“. You could call it anything you want, or nothing. That’s simply the name commonly used. The government doesn’t presume or direct the manner in which you will spend the day, you can choose to worship the baby Jesus, or you can go bowling, or head out to the gun range to practice your precious Second Amendment rights. The government doesn’t care.
Why, almost 150 years later, Trump and his henchmen in the media are bringing up yet again what individual Americans call the day or the season, or what they do not call it, or whether they celebrate, or do not celebrate it, is not worth anyone’s time.
We live in a time of cultural transition, but one thing is sure: December seems to be about Christmas music.
Despite the fake War on Christmas.
Living in NJ and working in NYC, I have a lot of experience with how Christians and non Christians react to Xmas. I have many Jewish neighbors, and my first cousin’s wife was Jewish. Many of my colleagues are Jewish too, included several who sing in what we call a holiday concert. By the way, in Coleman and Halloran’s office Christmas party in 1946 (my father was office manager) these 2 Irishmen had a banner with Happy Holidays on the wall.
I would say Happy Holidays to my neighbors, the Angoffs, and they would say Merry Christmas.
Outside of small towns where folks are inbred with inbred opinions we have long accommodated each other. And as John Stewart has said, Xmas won (and who goes past the third day of Hannukah).
But for Trump, its all part of his schtick.