. . . and while we are on the subject of suckers:

According to FOX News we’re in the middle of a War on Christmas. Fox is big on their version of Christianity, which is all about hate. They feel the PC approach to the holidays – in which acknowledgment is made that there are other religions in the world – is nothing but the devil at work trying to turn the world’s population away from the one true faith. They are leading a movement to put Christ back in Christmas, the way it is supposed to be and always has been. Except it turns out Christmas as a celebration in the U.S. wasn’t always a religious holiday. In fact for several decades it was banned. By Christians.

“Shocking as it sounds, followers of Jesus Christ in both America and England helped pass laws making it illegal to observe Christmas, believing it was an insult to God to honor a day associated with ancient paganism,” according to the book Shocked by the Bible. “Most Americans today are unaware that Christmas was banned in Boston from 1659 to 1681.”

The religious right nutters of the day (which, sad to say was almost everybody) believed that people needed strict rules to be religious and that any kind of merrymaking was sinful. Christmas festivities like dancing, singing carols, games, and drinking were banned by England’s parliament in 1644 and those fleeing the mother soil for ‘religious freedom’ among other reasons carried that tradition with them. Yup, seems the spin doctors were hard at work even in the 1600s. Freedom of religion really meant freedom to practice religion the way we tell you to and one of the ways they decided to be religious was to criminalize Christmas according to the book, Once Upon A Gospel.

And like religious fanatics the world over, the Puritans went at it with a um, religious fever. Christmas trees and decorations were deemed to be pagan rituals and banned, along with mince pies. (Okay, so that one makes sense.) By law, all businesses and stores had to remain open on Christmas and town criers walked the streets calling “No Christmas!”

Back across the pond, they came to their senses in 1660 and lifted the ban on Christmas. In the colonies, Christmas did not become a legal holiday until 1856. Today, because the world is at peace, there are no starving people anymore, and the world economy is doing so well, the debate over how and when we should be allowed to celebrate Christmas rages on.

Conservatives and Liberals argue over . . . oh, wait, Liberals don’t care . . . okay then, Conservatives argue with themselves over the right to be religious on a non-secular holiday while the true enemy is ignored. It’s time we quit worrying whether kids in school should be allowed to say Merry Christmas and band together to put a stop to the real terror of the Christmas season: fruitcake.

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