The 'War on Christmas' fires itself into the spotlight

It’s not surprising that nationwide controversy builds up as the holiday season rolls in. But for years, December has brought upon the arrival of the ‘War on Christmas’.

For those who don’t know, the ‘War on Christmas’ is a belief that Christmas-related values are being removed or avoided in marketing, schools, and even in government. Bill O’Reilly, a correspondent on Fox News, has made the ‘War on Christmas’ an annual segment each year on “The O’Reilly Report.”

According to O’Reilly in 2013, businesses and corporations that forced employees to avoid directly saying ‘Merry Christmas’ were outed by the movement to save the greeting.

"Nine years ago when we started this reportage on Christmas, there were orders given by some major corporations in America to their employees, forbidding them -- forbidding them -- from saying 'Merry Christmas,'” O’Reilly said in the 2013 segment. “We outed those companies, they reversed the policy, so today, everybody as far as we know ... can say ‘Merry Christmas’ to anyone they want.”

O’Reilly repeated the notion into 2014, this time using an image created by American Atheists that advised children to skip church on Christmas, reigniting the ‘War on Christmas’ fuse.

“I cannot understand for the life of me why anyone would bother trying to diminish the federal holiday of Christmas,” O’Reilly said.

O’Reilly was joined by psychotherapist Karen Ruskin during the segment, who said that the billboard was “horrifically insulting”.

“It’s really disrespectful. But not unlike the bully who tries to push other people down in order to make themselves feel better,” Ruskin said.

The actual billboard says: “Dear Santa, All I want for Christmas is to skip church! I’m too old for fairy tales.”

I don’t really see this billboard being insulting. It’s not entirely shaming anyone from a specific belief or religion. The only part I can see being mildly insulting is calling christian beliefs “fairy tales.”

Aside from that, other events that could be attributed to the “War on Christmas” include H.B. No. 308, otherwise known as the “Merry Christmas Bill.”

Signed in 2013 by former Texas Governor Rick Perry, the bill allows school districts to “educate students about the history of traditional winter celebrations, and allow students and district staff to offer traditional greetings regarding the celebrations.”

These “traditional greetings” unsurprisingly include: “Merry Christmas”, “Happy Holidays” and “Happy Hanukkah.” However, school districts who follow this policy must display messages adhering to multiple religions. They also cannot encourage “adherence to a particular religious belief” according to the bill itself.

Another event occurred in Maryland, in which Muslim community leaders urged the Board of Education in Montgomery County to give “equal billing to the Muslim holy day of Eid al-Adha”. The move ended up eliminating references to any religious holidays for the 2015-2016 school calendar.

Now, never in my life would I have even thought to have a bill signed into effect that requires school districts to include multiple religious aspects in a winter display. Especially here at Aurora High School, I think it’s safe to say most students or faculty wouldn’t have a problem if we focused on just Christmas.

But this is the problem with this so-called ‘War on Christmas’. Fox News sees it as a matter of corporate officials diminishing Christmas, while others see it as a problem regarding the holidays of other religions. In other words, there’s no clear path that the ‘War on Christmas’ takes.

If you’ve been paying attention to the news lately, then you’ve probably heard about the controversy of the red cups given out by Starbucks during the holiday season. These cups, which usually include some sort of Christmas markings, were just red, complementing the green starbucks logo on the cup.

Red and green are traditionally seen as Christmas colors.

Apparently Joshua Feuerstein didn’t think red and green was enough to symbolize Christmas, and instead started a movement by “tricking” the coffee shop’s baristas into writing “Merry Christmas” on the cup rather than their actual name when ordering.

“Do you realize that Starbucks wanted to take Christ and Christmas off of their brand-new cups?” Feuerstein said. “That’s why they’re just plain red.”

In reality, I’m pretty sure that taking off images of snowflakes or santa does not mean Starbucks wanted to take the ‘Christ’ out of ‘Christmas.’ The cups were red and green. If that’s not enough to satisfy one’s Christmas needs, then I don’t know what to say.

The cup controversy was even brought up by potential GOP nominee Donald Trump during a rally. He suggested that the public boycott Starbucks, and assured the people present that, “If I become president, we’re all going to be saying ‘Merry Christmas’ again.”

Oh, and don’t forget that Dunkin’ Donuts started using their holiday cups only days after Starbucks started using theirs, a white cup with the word ‘Joy’ in a holiday script.

You could even make the connection that the cup lets any winter holiday be represented. By using Fueurstein’s own logic, if we put Christmas symbols on the cup, then wouldn’t that diminish every other holiday that’s celebrated during Winter? If we didn’t put any symbols on the cup, then customers could customize the cup. Think of it as a blank canvas for anyone to represent their beliefs on.

To even further diminish Fueurstein’s logic, the cups Starbucks used in past years featured images of snowflakes and snowmen. These are related more to Winter itself rather than Christmas.

This is where this whole ‘War on Christmas’ debacle gets fuzzy. Is the problem that there’s not enough people saying ‘Merry Christmas’ as opposed to ‘Happy Holidays’? I don’t necessarily see a problem with either. ‘Happy Holidays’ just focuses on multiple holidays rather than just Christmas.

I just find it ridiculous that people feel a need to boycott certain companies and turn little misunderstandings into huge deals. Even more so, I think the problem is that people want to be directly told ‘Merry Christmas’ rather than just assuming it.

So how does one fix the ‘Federal holiday of Christmas’? Unfortunately, there’s no way to fix something like this, since this issue is purely based on perception.

I don’t think that red cups and telling people not to say ‘Merry Christmas’ diminishes the value of Christmas. From what I researched, I’m assuming that the ‘War on Christmas’ is an issue because other religious holidays haven’t really been talked about or represented in mainstream media like Christmas has.

But I don’t know why people need to be directly told ‘Merry Christmas’ or see Christmas-related scenery or items. I don’t know why saying ‘Happy Holidays’ diminishes Christmas in any way. I don’t understand why there needs to be federal bills that determine what can and can’t be shown in a Christmas display.

The ‘War on Christmas’ should be about the lack of Holiday values, not worrying about who says ‘Merry Christmas’ or not. It’s a waste of time to argue over two words.