Sleigh bells ringing, red-nosed caribou taking flight, obese pedophiles donning red jumpsuits and the Thanksgiving hangover all point to it — the holiday season is upon us.
But all is not well for those who don’t believe a Jewish messiah popped out of a virgin womb 2,000 years ago on Dec. 25.
Right about now every year, droves of discriminatory disciples attempt to eradicate any moves to secularize and broaden the holiday season to non-Christian faiths.
The “reason for the season” is apparently limited only to Jesus, Santa, indoor evergreens, snowmen and consumerism galore.
It may not, however, include celebrations like Kwanzaa, Hanukkah, Eid al-Adha or Yule — not in U.S. retail giant advertisements.
Every year the conservative regime rises up to do imaginary battle with evil leftists to protect the monopoly of their all-too-pagan pastime.
The worst of these buzz killers: the American Family Association.
This conservative watchdog group gathered 700,000 petition signatures in 2005 of those ready to boycott Target for not using the exclusivist term “Christmas” in their holiday advertising. Target caved within one week, as then-CEO Bob Ulrich so shamefully stated, “Frankly, we screwed up.”
The AFA took on Best Buy in 2006 for not specifically citing Christmas in their advertisements. Joining forces with the AFA was the Catholic League, an American Catholic civil rights group who put Best Buy on its “Christmas Watch List” — the Catholic equivalent of the naughty list, I suppose.
In triumphant retortion was Best Buy spokeswoman Dawn Bryant, who said, “We are going to continue to use the term ‘holiday’ because there are several holidays throughout the time period, and we certainly need to be respectful of all of them.”
I couldn’t have said it better myself.
But just when you thought the AFA had been vanquished, it appeared in 2008 to take on — of all retailers — The Home Depot.
Apparently using the term “holiday” instead of “Christmas” warrants an attack on the big orange block. Like Target, The Home Depot quickly said “uncle” and promised to make the word “Christmas” more prominent on their website.
The most recent, and most ridiculous, of these seemingly modern Crusades took place last holiday season against that most preppy of all retailers — Gap.
Trying to bring the celebrations together, Gap launched an advertising campaign including the commercial tune, “Go Christmas, go Hanukkah, go Kwanzaa, go solstice… go whatever holiday you Wannakuh.”
Soon after its launch, the AFA began a two-month boycott of the company.
Their justification was — are you ready for this? — that the ad referenced the pagan holiday solstice.
As we all know, Christmas has remained completely untouched by pagan influence — yeah, right. There isn’t enough room in this publication for the list of pagan elements in Christmas, or in Christianity for that matter.
The sad fact is that Gap folded to the AFA’s demands in the end, and once again the Grinch that stole the holiday season successfully brought a major U.S. retailer to its knees with its discriminatory agenda of hatred.
This year, however, something feels different. Perhaps it’s the unusually warm weather.
Or maybe budget cuts have taken our minds off holiday shopping and made us place the well being of the University at the top of our Christmas lists.
Or maybe it’s the manger scene billboard currently hovering over the Lincoln Tunnel in New Jersey proclaiming, “You know it’s a myth. This season, celebrate reason!”
That’s right — the other side struck first this season, namely the group American Atheists.
In the coming month, expect ludicrous e-mails from distant family members and conservative watchdog groups, such as the AFA, proclaiming which retailers have been certified “Christian.”
In the end, I can’t speculate who will win the fictional War on Christmas — it’s just another thing for conservative groups to bitch about. But if this tells you anything about the AFA, they currently have Victoria’s Secret on their “Companies against Christmas” naughty list.
That’s just not kosher.
Andrew Robertson is a 23-year-old English writing and culture senior from Baton Rouge. Follow him on Twitter @TDR_Arobertson.
 
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Contact Andrew Robertson at [email protected]