Please Advise! How Will the Left Ruin Christmas This Year?

[Editor’s note: Steve Burgess is an accredited spin doctor with a PhD in Centrifugal Rhetoric from the University of SASE, situated on the lovely campus of PO Box 7650, Cayman Islands. In this space he dispenses PR advice to politicians, the rich and famous, the troubled and well-heeled, the wealthy and gullible.]

Dear Dr. Steve,

Why does the evil Left want to destroy Christmas?

Signed,

Fox Warrior

Dear Fox,

It’s even worse than you realize. Bad enough that heathens and socialists have declared war on all that is good and holy. Once upon a time you could go into Starbucks and your barista would say, “Accept Jesus Christ as your personal saviour or burn in Hell, here’s your latte.” But the globalists put an end to all that. These days it’s just “Happy Holidays,” the official passwords of Satan.

Now the infidels have a new tool to undermine the festive season. Introducing the latest academic discipline: Critical Christmas Theory.

Critical Christmas Theory is a liberal plot to take apart all your beloved holiday traditions. Sure, going door-to-door pretending to be Christmas carolers and then shouting at the children that their parents are liars and there is no Santa Claus might be fun for a while. But it wasn’t enough for us. We, the godless Left, must destroy every vestige of Christmas joy, both sacred and secular.

Let’s start with the classic Christmas poem “A Visit from St. Nicholas,” a.k.a. “Twas the Night Before Christmas,” first published anonymously in 1823 and later credited to Clement Clarke Moore. It’s the poem that has defined the traditions of the modern Christmas celebration. “Not a creature was stirring,” Moore wrote, “not even a mouse.”

Nor could he hear the slaves who served him, he might have added, perhaps because Moore’s slaves weren’t allowed in the house to begin with — we don’t know. But Clement Moore did own slaves, and he opposed abolition even as it was becoming the law of the land in New York. He also opposed land development in Manhattan in part because he thought it was an attempt to pander to the working classes. He then saw the light, subdivided his Chelsea estate and got rich doing so (lending its name to Manhattan’s Chelsea district in the process).

Even deeper down the Critical Christmas rabbit hole, we find other points to examine in the famous verse. Santa’s reindeer “Donner” and “Blitzen” are (depending on spelling) Dutch or German for “Thunder” and “Lightning.” Does Moore’s St. Nicholas come in peace? Or are we hearing about reindeer war games here?

Then there is this line: “And mamma in her kerchief and I in my cap/Had just settled our brains for a long winter’s nap.” The reference to “brains” is often changed in recitals and recordings of the poem. Why? Was Moore making an early coded reference to the Matrix, a revelation that is now inconvenient to those who would keep us in bondage? Is Santa’s red nose a reference to the red pill that awakens one to the true nature of reality?

But there is really no need to indulge in such fringe theorizing. We leftists should keep our focus on the main goal, which is simply to destroy the joy of the season for good Christian folk as is our sinister wont. There’s plenty of material available.

For example, the beloved carol “Away in a Manger” which is, strictly speaking, heretical. The line, “But little Lord Jesus, no crying he makes” suggests that Baby Jesus is not a human baby like others. This comports with the doctrine known as docetism, condemned as heresy in 325 AD at the First Council of Nicaea.

And that’s without even mentioning “... the cattle are lowing...” No such animals, or any others, are present in the canonical Gospels — they first appear in a later book now known to scholars as the “Gospel of Pseudo-Matthew.” Any good Christian caught singing “Away in a Manger” ought to be burned like a pagan Yule log.

We on the godless Left are on a relentless quest to take the Christ out of Christmas, to erase the reason for the season. As conservatives know, that is because we hate life and ourselves. But we lefties might counter that because Christmas and Boxing Day are statutory holidays, mandated by the government, imposed upon the nation as a whole, they are therefore perfectly suitable for flexible celebrations. Let each of us spend our own statutory holidays in our own way, we argue impiously.

For those who want Christmas to remain a purely Christian event, there is a possible remedy — petition the government to remove it from the calendar of statutory holidays, thereby giving it the same status as Diwali, Eid or Yom Kippur. Alas, such a proposal would surely be greeted with even greater howls of conservative outrage. By retaining its official holiday status yet denying the right of non-Christians to celebrate in their own way, Fox News Christians want to have their Christmas cake and eat it too.

As it is, from Linus to shining stars to “O Come All Ye Faithful,” the holiday season is inescapably drenched in Christian dogma and iconography, a fact that most non-Christian North Americans long ago accepted. Not that the Fox brigades will relax, of course. Hearing conservative Christians complain about how persecuted they are this time of year is like having an elephant sit on you and then complain that his ass is sore.

Never mind. Let us, as evil leftists, continue to sow holiday discord where we can. Here’s a tip: when the family is gathered on Christmas Eve hearing once again the tale of the wise men and their gifts of gold, frankincense and myrrh, you might want to mention that myrrh was an oil used in embalming, which makes it one massive bummer of a birthday gift. Merry Christmas, heathens!