It's a War on Christmas, Charlie Brown

Maybe "cultural" holiday is a better way to describe it. It's a cultural holiday celebrated by Christians, which is why it can be a federal holiday without violating the First Amendment. Also because it was a holiday before anyone quite understood what the First Amendment meant, so it's mostly post hoc rationalization.

 

I'm too lazy to google it but the oft-repeated "truth" about Christmas is that it was based on some Celtic/Pagan/whatever winter festival. So if your little school play doesn't feature an ox being sacrificed to Odin, amidst a bunch of drunken Viking war chants, I'm just not down with it.

Anyway, according to a slightly less dubious source, the original 1965 special was a big Coke ad (TV Legends Revealed: Were There Product Placements in Original A Charlie Brown Christmas? - Spinoff Online - TV, Film, and Entertainment News Daily)

 

It would be fun to see some Christian conservative Congressman or Senator introduce a bill stripping Christmas of its standing as a federal holiday. Wonder how many votes it would get. (Of course to get any votes, it would have to also add in another federal holiday, maybe even a floating holiday. Nobody's voting to give government workers one less day off or of overtime.)

 

That's OK. To make it up, they followed the original with the less popular, You're Gonna Get The Diabetes, Charlie Brown.

 

Not based, but "placed" (calendar-wise) to coincide with such celebrations. There are other theories, though.

 

#WilfordBrimleyStyle #WhateverHappenedtoDiabeetus?

 

To prevent anyone from being offended, all holidays should be be renamed Federally Mandated Off Days. F-MODs for short. Furthermore, they will be given a numerical number to coincide with its place on the calendar. For example, New Year's Day will F-MOD I, MLK will become F-MOD II, Presidents' Day becomes F-MOD III and so forth. No more worries about Merry Kwanzaa or Happy Presidents to offend anyone...just say "Enjoy your F-MOD."

 

This all seems pretty silly, Charlie Brown

 

The board has been shut down for ... well, exactly this.

 

Scoreboard!

 

Again, no one is necessarily "offended." They don't believe that support for religion is a legally permissible function of a public school system.