Welcome to December or, as Fox & Friends and Tucker Carlson would have it, the War on Christmas. In the time-honored Christmas tradition of ghost stories as the year grows dark, conservatives have loved to scare the country with a made-up threat regarding the end of the beloved year-end celebration by dastardly liberals for at least a decade now. At this point, it seems most mainstream Republicans are only half-heartedly going through the motions regarding the war, like a parent that increasingly forgets to move the Elf on the Shelf as the month lurches on.
Still, traditions are important to the maintenance of cultural identity, so I fired up the old think piece machine to rebut the War on Christmas. The truth is liberals have always loved Christmas and not sought to end it. Here’s why.
5. It’s a Time to Celebrate Diversity
It’s a firm belief among liberals that if we just get the halls of power to match the country’s actual demographics regarding marginalized people, all the problems will sort themselves out. It’s not really true since at the end of the day we’ve rigged the system so that mostly only the rich can serve as representatives, but representation is still very important. Christmastime is the perfect time to celebrate diversity. The overpowering juggernaut that is Christmas has led to many religions expanding the importance of their winter festivals, so that the end of December is a cornucopia of different beliefs. Hanukkah, Yule, Kwanza, Solstice, and the melting pot of various beliefs from across the world all get a place at the table.
4. Church Gets Fun
Most liberals are Christians. I know this fact is inconvenient to conservatives who want to paint figures like Joe Biden and Barack Obama as heathens instead of very devout men, but the data has always shown that Christianity and liberalism coexist. That means a lot of liberals go to church on Christmas, and that’s usually when church is at its best. The music and revelry are all turned up to eleven, we get nativity plays with adorable children, and since so many people only go to church on the high holidays preachers are usually keen to dial back anything obnoxious to have a more inclusive service. Church on Christmas is often what every Sunday should be.
3. It’s a Geek’s Playground
I know it’s fun to pretend that liberals are smarter than conservatives, but it’s not true. Liberals (keyword) tend to be more highly educated, but there is a difference between being uninformed and misinformed. However, I would postulate that there are way more liberal geeks than conservative ones simply because liberal ideas tend to produce most of our big pop culture vehicles. Christmas gives geeks opportunities to commune in the language of baubles and trinkets. When else are you going to have an excuse to give someone a Millennium Falcon waffle iron, Doctor Who socks, or ugly Street Fighter Christmas sweaters? Christmas lets the geek flag fly in the form of presents, and it’s always a treat.
2. There’s More Charity Going On
More than one-third of all charitable giving happens in December. Whether that’s the Christmas spirit or the wealthy rushing to get their tax deductions in, it means that for one month a huge chunk of the country is thinking about someone other than themselves for a change. It’s about the only time you see conservatives acting as if redistributing their wealth to the needy is an obligation instead of a sinister plot to turn into a socialist hellscape. Speaking of which…
1. The Ultimate Liberal Fairy Tale is Everywhere
My favorite fairy tale of all time is A Christmas Carol, and it is everything liberals want in the world. A rich man gets yelled at by ghosts all night until he stops being a pointless cruel asshole to the people who depend on him for their well-being. Ebenezer Scrooge remains rich, he’s still in charge, but now the people in his life can bloody well eat and their kids can go to the doctor. That seems like a very fair compromise, and if we could get it done all-year ‘round then maybe this country wouldn’t be the way it is.
This article appears in Jan 1 – Dec 31, 2021.
