Posted on 11/11/2003 1:24:41 AM PST by JohnHuang2
© 2003 WorldNetDaily.com
The holiday suckers are back and it's worse than ever.
I'm not talking about people taken in by holiday scams, but people who are sucking the meaning from our traditional holidays and leaving them hollow remnants of meaningless drek.
I saw it in mid-August when I stopped in one of my favorite stores, specializing in items from all over the world, including specialty food and wines.
It was summer, and then I went into the store and was hit between the eyes with their full-bore displays for Halloween. In August? Yes. Candy, masks, decorations. They had it all.
I had it, too! I was disgusted. Talk about rushing the season. I thought that about took the cake, but I was wrong. It was just the beginning.
Newspapers were filled with Halloween themes, recipes, party ideas and costume suggestions. People now decorate their houses – and not with just a few ghost pictures on the windows. Lawns are filled with graves and tombstones, trees are draped with cobwebs and hedges are strung with pumpkin lights.
Halloween has morphed into a major holiday celebration for adults. Whatever happened to little kids trick-or-treating? The last time I was home for the annual begging, the only "children" who showed up were high-school students. A six-footer looks pretty silly acting like a 5-year-old.
By early September, it was "beginning to look a lot like Christmas." Normally, that would mean December. Not now. These days, Christmas hits at Labor Day and picks up speed from there.
In fact, if you wait until mid-December to shop, you'll find everything picked over. If you need cards or decorations, you'll be lucky if anything's left.
Stores begin Christmas clearances before the 25th. Sale catalogs arrive in mid-December. Talk about taking the glow off the holiday – especially if that special gift, for which you paid full price, is marked down 50 percent before you even wrap it!
One year, the day after Christmas, I went into the hardware store to buy a couple of bulbs for the Christmas lights. They had none. They told me they were already packed away for next year! This was the same store that had Christmas merchandise displayed weeks before Thanksgiving.
Thanksgiving? What's that? It's become one of the most ignored traditional American holidays. Thanksgiving commemorates the colonists giving thanks to God for their survival in the new world.
Unfortunately, that part of the holiday is gone. It's become turkey day and football. The only stores really using the theme in advertising are supermarkets – get your turkey and trimmings. And don't forget the beer for the bowl games.
Even at that, the word "Thanksgiving" is rarely seen. When was the last time you saw pictures of pilgrims? Or anything about their giving thanks – meaning, to God. Don't hold your breath. God isn't allowed.
Then there's Christmas. Oh. Sorry. Not now. Now it's the holiday season. There's Santa, maybe. A decorated tree. Yes. Stockings? Yes. Gifts? Of course, that's what it's all about, isn't it? Well, not really, but you'd never know.
In the public square you won't see anything concerning the true meaning of Christmas. No crosses, creche, Jesus, holy family, wise men, Bible or God. Religion has been stripped from the public face of Christmas – despite the fact that it and Thanksgiving are national holidays, the religious origins have all but been wiped out in public.
In schools, children are not taught the truth of the holidays. In addition, there are no Christmas vacations, Christmas carols, Christmas pageants or displays. Everything is generic and non-religious.
The supreme irony is that virtually all decorations sold are made in atheistic Communist China, likely by slave labor. The hypocrisy is clear when the "made in China" label is on nativity figures and angels.
Then, there's multiculturalism. The media do special features on Ramadan and Kwanzaa and, sometimes, even Hanukkah if they want to appear ecumenical. We will be "educated" up the wazoo on these ceremonies, but you'd be hard pressed to find any mention of Gospel readings of the birth of Jesus, who He was, midnight mass or the meaning of it all.
And now, we have to deal with the ABC-TV network news airing a one-hour special on a fictional theory of Jesus being married.
Do you think they'd have the courage to do a one-hour special about the sex life of Muhammad?
Like the drip of water wearing away rock, it's clearer than ever that the religious foundation of this country is clearly, and with intent, being subverted. We know what happens to a structure when its foundation is destroyed. That's what they want. We're too close for comfort.
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