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Fox Nation announces first shots fired in annual War on Christmas

October 30, 2009 6:55 am ET by Media Matters staff

waronxmas

Tags: Fox Nation

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    • Author by rwmacdonald2091 (October 30, 2009 7:31 am ET)
      6  
      What, they can't even wait for Thanksgiving to start the war? What on earth is going on?
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      • Author by MickD (October 30, 2009 9:21 am ET)
        10  
        Remember when you were a kid and the 'War on Christmas' didn't start until the Friday after Thanksgiving? Remember driving a Ford Frick?
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      • Author by neon desert (October 30, 2009 9:49 am ET)
        7  
        Let me answer that with a few words delivered a couple years ago by a true - if misunderstood - American hero:

        Sure, we want to go home. We want this war over with. The quickest way to get it over with is to go get the bastards who started it. The quicker they are whipped, the quicker we can go home. The shortest way home is through Macys and JC Penney. And when we get to Nordstroms, I am personally going to shoot that paper hanging son-of-a-bitch Santa. Just like I'd shoot a snake!

        I don't want to get any messages saying, "I am holding my position." We are not holding a golldanged thing. Let the Yuleys do that. We are advancing constantly and we are not interested in holding onto anything, except the enemy's sugarplums. We are going to twist his garland and kick the living wassail out of him all of the time. Our basic plan of operation is to advance and to keep on advancing regardless of whether we have to go over the river, under the mistletoe, or through the woods. We are going to go through him like stuffing through a christmas goose; like fruitcake through a tin soldier!"

        There is one great thing that you men will all be able to say after this war is over and you are home once again. You may be thankful that twenty years from now when you are sitting by the fireplace with your grandson on your knee and he asks you what you did in the great War On Christmas, you WON'T have to cough, shift him to the other knee and say, "Well, your Granddaddy shoveled snow in Connecticut." No, Sir, you can look him straight in the eye and say, "Son, your Granddaddy rode with the Great Christmacide Army and a Son-of-a-Goddamned-Bitch named Colonel Harlan Sanders!
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        • Author by The_Cat (October 30, 2009 10:53 am ET)
          4  
          Rolling on the floor laughing at that, neon desert! That was truly epic! Thank you for the best laugh I've had today :)

          I hope the Col. stops by and sees this...
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        • Author by Don Hussein Fabuloso (October 30, 2009 1:53 pm ET)
          3  
          Very nice, Neon. You know I couldn't resist the first WOX headline of the year (the day before Samhain, even). I'm a little disappointed that Worrierking isn't here with his war paint on, he's three hours ahead of me.

          It is the season when the child comes out in all of us, and Fox shifts their reporting down from a Jr. High level to the third grade level that really appeals to the far right wing nut.The wonder, the innocence, and the magic.

          They just simmer all year, a quiet anger over having to push "1" for English, then it all explodes when they hear that first vicious "Happy Holidays".
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          • Author by Don Hussein Fabuloso (October 30, 2009 3:04 pm ET)
            1  
            We need some new propaganda posters, too. All I have is the WOX '07 model.
            [http://i49.photobucket.com/albums/f262/Captain_Dick/sob4-1.jpg]
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        • Author by CleverTitania (October 30, 2009 2:34 pm ET)
          1  
          That was flipping inspired! I want to see your version of Rudolf 2: Hunting Season.
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    • Author by walstib (October 30, 2009 7:38 am ET)
      12 1
      I for one love the war on Christmas. Every chance I get I wish folks Happy Holidays and I especially love to track down elves and sucker punch them.
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    • Author by IRONY 101 (October 30, 2009 8:10 am ET)
      16  
      If these right wing yo-yos want to preserve the integrity of Christmas perhaps they might refrain from participating in the yearly retail orgy at their local shopping mall and, instead, focus on helping their fellow man.
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    • Author by New Frontier (October 30, 2009 8:23 am ET)
      7  
      The Made-up Sh!t Heard 'Round the World.
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      • Author by IRONY 101 (October 30, 2009 8:29 am ET)
        6  
        And it's all motivated by a cultivated hatred of liberals, whom they perceive to be the embodiment of evil.
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    • Author by epkklk851 (October 30, 2009 8:30 am ET)
      12  
      Because my husband and children are Jewish, we don't really celebrate Christmas the "American" way. We haven't put up a tree since 1992 and we don't really exchange gifts. We do make it an annual thing to find an angel tree at the mall and buy gifts for those children, but those are usually the only gifts we buy. We do go to Mass as a family on Christmas Eve (they indulge me) and we have a nice dinner on Christmas day, but really Christmas is quiet family time. My husband's sister, who is on her Synagogue board, doesn't go to the malls once the Christmas music starts and returns only after it stops. I don't see what is wrong with saying "Happy Holidays", because the person saying may be Muslim and the person hearing it may be an atheist, and for some, it is a very dark and lonely time. I prefer to keep Christmas as a quiet religious holy day, not some big to-doo with packages and craziness. It seems to me that the people who shout loudest about the War on Christmas are also the ones who keep forgetting that it is a sacred time not just an excuse for shopping.
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      • Author by DAWUSS (October 30, 2009 8:55 am ET)
        2 4
        The only thing I can see wrong with "Happy Holidays" is that it's way too generic. "Happy Holidays" can apply to any holiday during any time of year.

        Also, I think that Christmas has become too commercialized to really be a Christian holiday anymore...
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        • Author by epkklk851 (October 30, 2009 9:03 am ET)
          5  
          Yes, which is why I decline to really get into the whole spirit thing. I really don't like what Christmas has become, so I just don't really participate. I would be perfectly happy if the clerk just said "Thank You for shopping at..." and left it there. I find all of this bustle and buying to be the real war on Christmas.
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    • Author by raine315 (October 30, 2009 8:56 am ET)
      9  
      So all year long wingnuts have been running around spreading lies, they want to deny fellow Americans health care and they are trying their best to destroy careers with their Beck inspired crap- ALL UnCHRIST LIKE BEHAVIOR. But now they want to play Mighty Christians with gaudy holiday decor. A Navitvity scene and a lit up tree does not make ya a good Christian.

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    • Author by DAWUSS (October 30, 2009 8:56 am ET)
        2
      Are we going back to that "Free Speech on Christmas" shiznet again?
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    • Author by bintx (October 30, 2009 9:13 am ET)
      3  
      I grew up in a very conservative church group called the church of Christ [small "c" in the church]. It is a mainstream church. The majority of churches of Christ do NOT celebrate Christmas in their churches because they do not believe that Christians are to celebrate Christmas. Most celebrate it in their homes, but do not really consider it a religious holiday.

      Every year, I write to O'Reilly and tell him how offensive his campaign against people who don't follow HIS view of traditional Christmas is to people who simply don't believe that they are to celebrate Christmas. Most of them are more conservative than he is . . . [They don't celebrate Easter in their churches, either, for the same reason.]

      Our traditional Christmas celebration is just a re-working of various pagan holidays anyway.
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      • Author by bintx (October 30, 2009 9:19 am ET)
           
        The church of Christ I'm speaking of has nothing to do with the United Church of Christ, btw. Each church is run independently . . . one of the more famous members of the church of Christ is Kenneth Starr.
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    • Author by MickD (October 30, 2009 9:24 am ET)
      4  
      The heck with the WonC, what about Michelle's dating secrets?!? Apparently the Foxites don't mind using her imagery to sell some schlock space on their site.
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    • Author by Max Credits (October 30, 2009 9:43 am ET)
      10  
      [http://photos-b.ak.fbcdn.net/photos-ak-snc1/v2598/185/87/1209365475/n1209365475_30359581_7835011.jpg]

      Can't wait to see if Mr. O'Reilly continues his own personal War on Christmas when he announces his 2009 "Holiday" shipping deadlines at ye olde Factor shoppe.

      Advance thanks, Mr. O'Reilly, and Merry Holiday!
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    • Author by antihannity2009 (October 30, 2009 10:11 am ET)
      4  
      I think that you should be able to say Happy Holidays or Merry Christmas to people. I'm sick and tired of people pretending to get offended from someone telling them Happy Holidays. No one gave a crap about this when I was growing up and then all of a sudden people started getting offended with people telling them Happy Holidays and saying the pledge of allegiance to the flag in school.
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      • Author by Tiredog (October 30, 2009 3:12 pm ET)
        1  
        It's getting harder and harder to find a Christmas card that says "Merry Christmas." I end up writing that in all the cards I send...
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    • Author by eweston8542983 (October 30, 2009 10:32 am ET)
      5  
      The local Pastafarians spend the day cooking, and poking each other with raw noodles.
      After the holy food fight, we assemble noodly clothing, glue a meatball to each ear, and then gambol and carol about the nieghborhood singing our favorite Weird Al Yankovic selections.
      We then stagger home to chisel off our impromto costumes and reflect upon normal lives. And thank his Noodiality that we don't live one.
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    • Author by pete592 (October 30, 2009 11:39 am ET)
      4  
      The more Fox News whines about isolated, trumped up cases of Christmas outrage, the earlier the retailers cram their seasonal sections with Christmas wares. My local Costco had Christmas decorations for sale on LABOR DAY.

      I think the real war is the one being waged by the retail industry against Halloween and Thanksgiving.
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    • Author by Bill from Palmdale (October 30, 2009 1:33 pm ET)
      6  
      I recall the phrases "Season's Greetings' and 'Happy Holidays' when I was a kid in the early 50s and I'm sure they were used before then. Retail outlets are not places of worship. No, really. So, when they try to be inclusive by using 'Happy Holidays', it's a thoughtful gesture but not for O'Reilly, who is thoughtlessness personified.

      O'Reilly is a paranoid, megalomaniac, bully who will play the victim card instantly when needed. Did I leave anything out?
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      • Author by Tiredog (October 30, 2009 2:10 pm ET)
        3  
        How about the fact that he's just generally an idiot?
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      • Author by Brabantio (October 31, 2009 9:10 am ET)
        2  
        Let's see if I'm getting the story from conservatives (as a group) correct. If businesses want to increase profits by refusing to pay for health care, that's their business, and people can just find other jobs if they don't like it. Regulations hinder profits, so we should minimize the amount of them. Lawsuits should be capped because people are taking too much money from companies for punitive damages.

        But businesses that increase profits by avoiding the alienation of people besides Christians are declaring war on Christmas. This is where the line is crossed so that businesses don't have maximum control over their behavior, the point where Jesus comes into play.
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    • Author by CleverTitania (October 30, 2009 2:39 pm ET)
         
      The winter holiday serves two good purposes. It forces us to hang out with our families, which most of us don't do enough. It also gives so called middle-class parents, who feel like they can't give their kids enough, an excuse to indulge them a little. Last year my son got a PC, which a Jr. High school student really should have. Xmas sales assuage my conscience at the expenditure.

      But it's a secular thing now. It needs to be considered as a separate entity to the religious holidays.
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