by Well, here it is… Merry Christmas! Is everyone having fun?
I hope so. After all, we are lucky to be able to come to the holiday season.
No, I’m not writing a diary of toxic positivity and gratitude about you, I’m talking about the despicable attempts of the awakened crowd to ban Christmas. Again.
At the beginning of the month, the University of Brighton allegedly “don’t mention Christmas!” and even Maria off Corrie Weatherfield suggested renaming the Christmas markets “winter markets”.
I know, I couldn’t believe it either. Yes, Maria Connor – hairdresser and now local councillor, is sadly married to the on-screen guy Gary Windass and the fit guy from the movie. dance on ice offscreen – infected by the awakened gang. When she’s not trying to get Jesus out of Christmas, she tries to come up with a plan to get the refugees back home. Scissors and mega box Freeze ‘n’ Hold turned into Greta Thunberg.
To be honest, at this stage the world has turned into a stage. Night of the Living Dead when those infected by the awakened virus threaten the streets and the remaining sentient souls have to scrap to avoid contamination.
All these slimy snowflakes are trying to contaminate tradition and language with their right to identity politics. Now they are coming for Christmas. Not this year. Not on my watch.
I say “this year” but of course I say “every year”. I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but it’s become an annual tradition to start the New Year’s celebrations with a rain of pearls that embrace the perils of Christmas. It repeats over and over us like an expired mince pies.
In the last decade we have seen the horror of birth bans, the bewilderment of children not understanding the religious significance of the Christian holiday, we replaced baby Jesus with a Greggs hot dog roll, and this year we witnessed a mass assault. Steams over attempts to cancel Christmas: A minor moral panic that followed immediately after the 2021 Census results showed that Christianity is no longer the majority religion in England and Wales.
Despite the evidence that cancellation culture has not successfully canceled anyone, we were worried about the specter of Christmas to come.
If Christianity is in decline, then surely Christmas days are numbered? I almost cry to my Baileys when I think about it. Religious experts told us that the number of people who identify as non-religious has been steadily increasing over the years, and the Census results reflect an established pattern, and Christmas remains largely on the cultural menu.
But… experts, huh? What do they know? A bunch of nerds staying at school instead of getting a decent job. Those who really know what’s going on – those who know does not have they’ve devoted decades of their lives to research – chuckled and nodded as they attended birth ceremonies that should have been banned in 2014, where the youngest generation portrayed the Christian story of Christ’s virgin birth (you know: a story that young people no longer know).
Yes, the census data added an extra chill of frenzy to the annual trips of the “Christmas banned” brigade. The news that Britain is no longer a Christian-majority country sparked lamentation and anger across the country. For a religion so deeply embedded in the country’s political infrastructure, it’s pretty fragile.
Fortunately, we managed to snatch the holiday season from the crowd of cancellations. Wow! It was a close call – for a while everything seemed a bit like 1647 there.
Has the awake crowd been around this long? No, in the 17th century Oliver Cromwell outlawed Christmas. And yet Christmas is still here. For a religious holiday that has been under attack since the 1600s, it’s not semi-resilient.
These annual moral panics about Christmas might actually be… exaggerated? Could it be that they’re a little overdone and that Christmas isn’t really at risk of being cancelled?
Inside Coronation Streetart held a mirror to life. Maria Connor’s pragmatic suggestion that the seasonal market should be renamed as Christmas is over was misrepresented in the press in a cynical attempt by a disgruntled colleague to undermine the councillor.
Similarly, criticism of Brighton University staff’s alleged guidance about Christmas forms part of a wider initiative to brand Higher Education institutions as snowflake farms where Christmas is canceled along with freedom of speech.
Anyone who actually reads the manual, which does not seem to include many of the ones reporting on it, would find that far from being an anti-Christmas/Christian dictation, it was pretty overwhelming. It was a kind encouragement for staff to be aware that their institution is an international space with a diverse student body.
I don’t know about you, but I’m tired of this constant malicious attempt to misrepresent cultural diversity as an attack on Christmas. There is no “forbidden” at Christmas. No attack on tradition. There is no attempt to “cancel” Christianity. He only wishes for peace, love and understanding.
Merry Christmas!
