By Felicia Cravens, Contributor, US Daily Review.
It’s Christmas Week as well as Hanukkah, and people are searching for last-minute gifts, making holiday plans, and enjoying the Holiday season. Thoughts turn to family and friends and loved ones, and people pause to remember the more important things in life.
Like, for instance, payroll tax reductions.
Seriously, the varmints in Washington have gone to war over an extension of the payroll tax cut. The Democrats want the tax cut. The Republicans want the tax cut. The president wants the tax cut. So what’s the problem? Well, it seems that they can’t agree on the length of time to extend the cuts, or what else should be included in the package. There’s so much political maneuvering and posturing, it’s hard to keep track of what actually happened. Congressman Paul Tonko (NY) even delivered on the House floor a politically charged “’Twas the Night Before Christmas” that I can barely stomach to read, much less watch.
No wonder some people stop paying attention to politics altogether. Trying to think like these guys can warp you.
Then there’s the traditional schlep to the retail stores to do the shopping. Even that’s become political in recent years. Retailers are in a pickle; using “Merry Christmas” in their advertising and greetings doesn’t quite capture all their clientele, and yet NOT using it unleashes the Christmas Warriors. For myself, I have always thought “Happy Holidays” was an innocuous way to say Happy Hanukkah, Merry Christmas, Happy New Year, and anything else you’d like to add in. It’s a SEASON, not just one day, and my way of celebrating the entire season is to be nice and friendly towards others (especially retail sales people – I used to be one) and not pick fights with people just because they don’t use the same phrase to greet me that I would use. I hope this year the season is about less conflict, not more.
Occupy San Diego rewrote some Christmas carols just for the holiday shoppers this year; It’s always nice to be serenaded while shopping at this time of year, but somehow, adding:
Here’s a story about our nation
Fa la la la la la la la la
Congress bends for corporations
Fa la la la la la la la la
just fills me with the Christmas spirit.
Across the Atlantic, a theology lecturer at St. Andrews University is claiming we all need to politicize Christmas even more. Dr. Stephen Holmes ties the Savior’s birth to overcrowding, poor living conditions, single teenage motherhood, and a lack of access to adequate health care. So as you’re gathering with your family this season to read the Nativity story, you might want to work in parallels for your children such as Occupy, the Arab Spring, and the large number of uninsured and illegal immigrants in our country.
Even UNICEF has gotten into the act with politicizing Christmas. They created a commercial portraying Santa as a One Percenter. I am not making this up. With the tagline “We go where Santa doesn’t” UNICEF is hoping you’ll hear their message and stop being so greedy. Or something.
What are we to do, when politics is creeping into this holiday season?
We can laugh about it with Larry the Cable Guy’s “Politically Correct Christmas.”
We can laugh about it with Remy’s rendition of “Grandma Got Indefinitely Detained.”
And then we can give our full attention to our faiths and our families for a while, and shut out all the political noise this season. It’ll still be there when you get back. Trust me.
Felicia Cravens walked away from her accounting degree over a decade ago to become a stay-at-home mom. Since then, she has filled her “spare time” teaching drama in an after-school program and working in conservative politics. She founded the Houston Tea Party Society in 2009, serves as a frequent media contact, and trains and equips people new to the political process. She can be found on Facebook and Google+, and on Twitter as @somethingfishie. She can also be found atLinkedIn.
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