Happy Time of Year

[Richard Gaskin]

Shari wrote:
> The U.S. is starting their battles in this arena as well.  Our megastore 
> Walmart who stopped saying Merry Christmas, instead moving to Happy 
> Holidays.  The majority of their customers were so unhappy that they had 
> to put it back.  But it's the beginning of the ending... I'm sure the 
> battle will rage on in years to come...

One of the biggest companies fanning the flames of this "battle" has 
been Fox News, who made a catchy slogan out of "War On Christmas" and 
has devoted a lot of airtime to rallying anger around that, but whose 
web site ironically offers "holiday ornaments" and not "Christmas 
ornaments".

I never really understood the controversy myself.  As society grew up 
and anti-semitism and other anglocentricities fell out of fashion, our 
culture simply looked in the mirror and saw many different faces there, 
of many different faiths.

While it's interesting that so many religions have some significance 
tied to the time of the winter solstice, as long as that's the case it 
just seems friendly to include them in the seasonal good tidings.

If there was any sort of war with all this, excluding the other half of 
our people from sharing in the joy and goodwill of this season would 
seem more warlike than merely wishing them well.  I've never found harm 
in wishing people well; it seems reflective of the Christian values I 
was raised with.

Peace on earth, goodwill to all.

-- 
  Richard Gaskin
  Fourth World Media Corporation
  ___________________________________________________________
  Ambassador at FourthWorld.com       http://www.FourthWorld.com