The War Against Christmas in Ludington?!

[XLFD]

When the Ludington City Council meeting met on December 5th, City Councilor A. "Pete" Engblade noted the absence of the mention of Christmas in this year's "Aglow on the Avenue" Holdiday Parade, and it was bantered about at the end of the meeting.  While not by any means conclusive of some anti-Christmas bias, the councilor had a point.

111205LCC from Mason County District Library on Vimeo.

 

Fox News' Bill O'Reilly coined the term "War on Christmas" just after the turn of the millenium.  His claim was that any specific mention of the term "Christmas" or its religious aspects was being increasingly censored, avoided, or discouraged by a number of advertisers, retailers, government (prominently schools), and other public and secular organizations. 

 

O'Reilly's claims often centered around a secular progressive movement which advocated a politically-correct term for December 25 which didn't mention any reference to anything Christian, particularly the fact that it is the celebration of Jesus Christ's birth.  Christmas is a federally recognized holiday, and many non-Christians celebrate the day in a mostly traditional way.  O'Reilly advocated the use of the word "Christmas" instead of the increasingly popular usage of "holiday", "winter day off", etc. 

 

It looks as if the City of Ludington had made a conscious decision to avoid using the term "Christmas" in its 'holiday' events.  The evidence of this happening is stark.  Consider the City's ad for this parade on their website:

Notice there is no mention of the word Christmas whereas the word Holiday is used throughout five separate times to refer to that day.  Undoubtedly, the carols that were sung were approved beforehand so as to not offend anyone by the mention of "Christ" or "Christmas".

 

But this is not the only indication of the avoidance of mentioning Christmas.  The Downtown Ludington Board in 2010 published their "Downtown Update" on preparations for Christmas celebrations without even mentioning Christmas once, but using the term holiday sixteen times!

http://www.ludington.mi.us/Ludington/Newsletter_October_2010.pdf

In it's Holiday Happenings they continued that trend, once again 16-0

http://www.ludington.mi.us/news/news_detail_T2_R335.html

 

Back in 2009, the same DU newsletter only mentioned Christmas once (as part of an event, 'Christmas Open House) and "holiday" was used the 15 other times

http://www.ludington.mi.us/Ludington/Newsletter_October_2009.pdf

 

At the same time our sister city on the lake, Manistee, proudly promote Christmas and market their parade as a classical Victorian Christmas parade.  In this advertisement they mention Christmas 17 times and holiday only once.  http://www.visitmanisteemichigan.com/stories/manistee_victorian_sle...

 

The long length of traditional Christmas activities in Manistee on the same weekend of Ludington's lackluster celebration of the winter solstice holiday that our Downtown Ludington Board has created makes it no surprise that even the Ludington Daily News had more coverage of Manistee's events than our own.  I know which one sounds more interesting to me.

 

Please Ludington City leaders, quit standing in the way of the people once again having a Christmas Parade in Ludington.  Remember what is the reason for the season.

[easymoney]

Maybe those who want a Christmas parade should apply for a permit and have their own parade , read where some city in Wisc.( liberal state) barred all religious floats and such, so, the church's are having their own parade at the same time, only on different streets. Love to see how that turns out?

[XLFD]

Brilliant idea, easymoney.  I think it would be a good idea for those who dislike their city's tinkering with the traditional Christmas parade to either do that or make it known that they plan on going to other area's that have actual Christmas parades.  In no means am I a strong Christian, but secular holiday parades are... blah.

[Lisa O'Brien]

Personally I like Happy Holidays because it is all inclusive. I know there are some that feel we are losing our traditions because of others faith or lack of. But Christmas really wasn't celebrated until the mid 19th century. The Pilgrims did not celebrate Christmas it was against their teachings "The Puritans made a point of abolishing the calendar of Christian feasts and saints’ day. The celebration of Christmas was forbidden in Massachusetts on pain of a five-shilling fine." Nor was this a Colonial peculiarity. When the same bunch was in charge in England, the Puritan Parliament "prohibited the observance of Christmas, Easter, Whitsunday, saints’ days and holy days."

Even our Founding Fathers didn't celebrate Christmas  "Christmas wasn’t particularly important to our Founding Fathers. The U.S. government didn’t even recognize Christmas as a holiday until 1870. Until then, Congress routinely met and conducted business on Christmas day. It was, in fact, just another workday."

I personally look at the Happy Holidays format as a sort of evolution of the Christmas season to include all not just Christians - and while I'm usually resistant to change I haven't had any trouble adapting.

[Willy]

It's one thing to call this time of year the holidays, it's another to purposely ignore and refuse to use the name of a long held traditional day called Christmas. Even among Christians, Christmas had different meanings but it goes beyond reason to ignore it's name. And to force a community to accept a practice of recognizing Christmas by name is the height of arrogance. There is noone alive who has not seen Christmas as a celebration of the birth of Christ even though his actual date of birth is not universally agreed upon. Christmas has been a process of changing traditions but it's name has never been ignored like the current air heads are trying to do. What ever a person wants Christmas to represent or be is up to them but it's not up to them to force upon others their ideas regarding how it's recognized and accepted by name. Another thing, what point is there to have the evolution of Christmas to include non Christians by ignoring it's name? If you don't call it Christmas and recognize it for what it is accepted to be then what's the use in celebrating a non named holiday. The whole point of celebrating this time of year is Christmas, if not, then we are left with a useless celebration of a nameless day. Does anyone think Muslims should stop using the name Ramadan and just celebrate it as a no name holiday. This type of thinking goes beyond reasonable.

[AQUAMAN]

Very important and solid points Willy, thanks for seeing Christmas for what it truly is, and believing in the importance of not letting outsiders force that which is wrong upon us. That of loving family adhesiveness and celebrating traditional country values as a whole. We as Americans do not put down others' religious values as a celebration here, neither should they ours as a mostly majority whole country that agree on this Holiday. To do otherwise is betrayal to the country as a whole imho at worst, or at best, a betrayal of our heritage, for which we must ignore and reject in entirety forever.

[easymoney]

height if arrogance seems appropreate, as this whole PC BS started with the Clinton administration and has just gone mad since.

Never in my 68 years did I ever have to think about something said jokingly before opening my mouth, for fear of being sued for offending someone.

Even my wife's boss, who happens to be a long time family friend, had to explain to her that no more joking around at her place of employment for fear some-one else may feel its sexual harassment.

[AQUAMAN]

Quite true easy, if you want to speak your mind these days with friends, you are being made to do so behind closed doors, or looking over your shoulder. Basically, we've had our traditions trashed and laughed at because of political correctness. Some here even say they wished they were living in the ages of loooong ago, where Christmas wasn't a recognized holiday for the USA. A sad joke of what we as Americans have become, all in this liberal effort to get along with the rest of the world's losers.

[XLFD]

Lisa,

I think you are quite open-minded yourself on this topic, but this Heaven person kind of scares me.

She represents a view that promotes diversity and tolerance, while at the same time asserting one position over all others which fail in their comparison. 

Those wearing tolerance for a label call other views intolerable. 

They show themselves to be as ridiculous as the extremely intolerant.

[Willy]

I Hope this doesn't scare any progressives or atheist and make them cringe and sink into a deep depression or make them feel left out and discriminated against or feel unwanted or make them feel like second class citizens or even worse, make hair grow on the bottom of their feet.

[AQUAMAN]

The biggest contradiction in terms for liberals spewing this poison again is that they themselves want their feelings protected and kept as a top priority, while at the same time trashing others that simply want to disagree politely, and keep the majority's feelings offended and on the defense. Sad, and oh so true in reality.

[easymoney]

just like the town in N.J. that has had a banner across the main street of town for 60 years, ONE person contacted the freedom from religion group in Wisc. now the town has to remove it. This one person claims he has to go past the sign everyday and it make him feel like an outsider. If the name of this person were to made known, I'm sure he would know what it feels like to be an outsider.

Or, as one guy said, allow them to put up their own banner and, since they don't believe, I guess the banner would be blank.

If you look at all the groups pushing for their rights, its a sure sign that the minority is in charge. We wnat our feelings protected and to hell with yours.

[Sweater Cows!]

I am an atheist and as long as I get a "national Holiday"  off work(on days it lands on work days) and some gifts then all you Christians can call it whatever you want. Now, take away the day off and gifts and tell me I have to celebrate Jesus and call it Christmas and we'll have a problem, lol! The word Christmas is synonymous with vacation days and gifts, not Jesus.