I found a comment linking to an old blog post that sort of plants a flag on one of the hills in the #waronchristmas:
In general terms, I recommend that “happy holidays” be used in general before Thankgiving, after which we should turn on a dime on “Black Friday” to wish people a “Merry Christmas.” Then immediately after Christmas, we should return to “happy holidays” instead of “Happy New Year.”
I suppose I can appreciate the Protestant or casual Catholic focusing on December 25th and longing for a more mute capitalism. My own preference is to reinforce that the song’s twelve days of Christmas start on December 25th. They don’t end there.
To repeat: the partridge is Christmas Day, not the drummers. Save the percussion for Epiphany Eve.
Overall, I think the #waronchristmas has faded in recent years. The network that need not be named got to pounce on President Obama for eight years, and now they get to defend #45. So , distraction elsewhere. Plus the difficulty in hitching Christmas to conservative politics as it plays out in the US these days.
Speaking of politics, I’m not sure I’m down with the hate getting passed out on the FLOTUS’s red berry trees.
Red is a Christmas color.
Well, yes. In some places, an Advent color, too. Pope Benedict introduced the Adventkranz, a German-styule wreath. I don’t remember the papal naysayers cuckling over that one last decade. They probably figured there was some theological reason for red in Advent.
I figured the red was some Slovenian thing, but no: it’s just red berries, which are a part of Christmas.
Green is also a nice Christmas color. White too. Silver and gold, I guess. If some mall Santa dressed up in green with white trim, or gold or silver plus bling, there would be enough upset among the parents to trigger another color, pink–as in pink slip.
fyi, there is a tradition of a green-robed Father Christmas in Europe–but you have to go back to when the first family’s pre-immigrant days for that.
Meanwhile, a blessed Advent to all.
Catholic Sensibility 