Chipping Away At The Foundation of Christmas

[Note: This is a revival of my earlier Chip... Chip... Chip... post, which met an untimely end as I was trying to pull an update.]

First-up, that which I was going to update with...
I've been working part-time for a local retailer, folks whom I've worked for on-and-off over the years since I've moved up to Alaska, during the Christmas rush. An elderly gentleman came in with who I assume was his granddaughter. They purchased an item as a present based on a recommendation that the would-be recipient had provided.

I was asked if I could wrap it and I replied that it would be no problem but I'd have to go to the back room to do so. They had no problem with that and mentioned they'd continue browsing around the store. I got it wrapped in record time and found the gentleman out in the aisles.

He thanked me and started to wish me, "Have a Merry-", when the granddaughter suddenly interjects, "Don't you dare say it!"

He kind of looks at her and says, "Huh?" To which, she replies, "I'm serious, don't you dare say it." He doesn't finish his statement to me and follows her out the store. I was stunned.

And, now, back to our earlier scheduled post...
Brace yourself, I’m going into "full-bore, I haven’t had enough caffeine to get my morning started" ranting and raving mode (or, maybe, I just need time back on the water to fish again). That sound you hear? That chip-chip-chipping away? That’s the sound of yet another stone in our social foundation being slowly worked away until we stand on nothing but crumbly gravel and infirm earth.

Once again, we come to the ever-increasing PC Holiday Assault:

Seniors decry ban on Christmas tree in their complex in Newhall

Residents in a Newhall senior apartment complex are protesting an order from management to remove their beloved Christmas tree from the community room because, they were told, it's a religious symbol.

On Tuesday, Tarzana-based JB Partners Group Inc. sent a memo to staff at The Willows senior apartment building demanding they take down Christmas trees and menorahs in communal areas.

Gov. Lincoln Chafee: It's Not 'Tradition' to Call It a Christmas Tree

Gov. Lincoln Chafee (I-R.I.) told CNSNews.com on Wednesday that his administration calls the decorated evergreen tree erected in the Rhode Island State House in December a “holiday tree”--rather than a "Christmas tree"--because that is what the tree is traditionally called.

And, who could forget this gem from last year:Nina Totenberg: ‘I Was At – Forgive the Expression – a Christmas Party...’

“I was at – forgive the expression – a Christmas party,” NPR reporter Nina Totenberg interjected on Inside Washington in the weekend’s oddest cautionary separation from a common description for a common event, seemingly embarrassed to invoke any religious terminology for Christmas. She didn’t say what she’d prefer for parties this time of the year to be named. “Winter solstice party”? Just plain old “holiday party”? Or a “seasonal gathering”?

For the record, I’m not a practicing Christian. I've always thought of myself as something more akin to a Neo-Celto-Shamanic-Elementalist (with a skosh of Budhist thrown in). Despite non-Christian bent (and I said "non", not "anti"), I really don’t give a damn to wish anyone anything like hypothetical PC wish of “Happy Hana-Rama-Quansa-Mas”; or, even that bland, stale and generic "Happy Holidays" for that matter.

We’re celebrating a holiday season predicated on Christmas, a Christian holiday, and should pay it some respect. Instead, we find ourselves forced to respect everyone else's feelings except for the folks whose beliefs it celebrates. It's bad enough that we've lost much of its essence to rampant, self-centered mercantilism but, now, we've got to put-up with all sorts of proselytizers. And, I've got news for all the humanists out there hell-bent to prove how idiotic, wek-minded, and just plain old wrong the religious and spiritiual folks are: you're proselytizing just as hard as any callous-knuckled bible-thumper.

I'll give you a "Have a Happy Holiday" for something like Thanksgiving but I sure as hell am going to wish you a Merry Christmas and, Happy New Year, to boot.

Oh, yeah: feeling grand that taking away someone's Christmas tree is a righteous blow in the face of Christian tyranny? You're taking it away from its origins in far more ancient beliefs.