[caption id="attachment_68752" align="alignright" width="600" caption="Bill O'Reilly"]
I’ve never really covered a war – unless you count some time I spent in Belfast in the 1980s – so this year, I was determined to earn my stripes as a combat correspondent. Yes, I decided I was going to cover the war on Christmas, no matter how risky and dangerous it seemed.
I waded ashore in early December at a so-called office “holiday party.” This is just the sort of thing that Bill O’Reilly and others at Fox News have been railing against for so long. Holiday party, indeed!
I figured this was a prime area for conflict. Who knew how many rhetorical IEDs were scattered among the revelers? I scouted out potential ambush sites, where the forces of militant liberal secularists might be lurking, ready to assail anyone who might utter the phrase “Merry Christmas.”
This, I thought, was dangerous work indeed. O’Reilly has been warning us about the many evils of militant liberal secularists and their unrelenting campaign against anything that might hint of Christianity in general, and Christmas in particular. If they thought I was the type of person who goes to church on Christmas, well, I could expect no mercy.
I learned that O’Reilly is right about these sneaky devils – militant liberal secularists wear no uniforms. There is no way to distinguish them from real Americans. This only made the party even more dangerous. Any group of two or three people could have been a potential secularist sleeper cell, waiting patiently for the right moment to attack.
There was a great deal of hugging and handshaking going on, which made this battlefield all the more confusing. Talk about the fog of war! Revelers who I knew to be non-Christian were fraternizing with people I knew to be Christian. At one point, a choral group appeared and sang a song in Italian. It sounded very seasonal, and if I heard correctly, there was a reference to “Santa Maria.”
If you’ve been following this war on Christmas, you probably know what happened next, right? Explosions of protest. A wave of incendiary complaints. A full-scale assault from the carefully hidden militant secularists.
Actually, none of that happened. I was disappointed. I thought for sure that even a veiled reference to a religious theme at a secular holiday party would surely lead to the kind of combat which O’Reilly has been describing from afar. But there was nothing – except warm applause for the singers.
As the night progressed, I kept watch over departing party-goers. Mixed in with wishes for a happy holiday season were dozens of references to Christmas. Again, I ducked and took cover, anticipating a barrage. But there was nothing but peace and good will.
Later in the season, still determined to witness for myself the great war that Fox News has been covering for more than a decade, I was inspired to tune into that unapologetic voice of militant secularism, National Public Radio. We all know who listens to NPR – commies, socialists, non-Americans, un-Americans, non-churchgoers, urban residents, and others determined to stamp out all references to the religious roots of Christmas.
I caught the end of Garrison Keillor’s weekly show, Prairie Home Companion. This, I was sure, would surely lead to the kind of conflict I was yearning to experience. It was a holiday show broadcast from the heart of militant secularism – midtown Manhattan. The host, Keillor, is a well-known liberal who mocks Lutheran traditions and beliefs under the cover of seemingly gentle humor and affectionate reminiscences. Why, Keillor even pokes fun at Catholicism, with his occasional references to a fictional parish called Our Lady of Perpetual Responsibility in the town of Lake Wobegon! Typical militant secularist!
So I put on my combat gear and awaited the inevitable secularist references to “holidays” and “Santa Claus” and “peace” and “love” – all those secularist evasions of the true meaning of Christmas. Instead, Keillor’s musical guests broke into song, a song which sounded very much like one of the carols I sing at Midnight Mass every year, “O Holy Night.” As I listened, I anticipated the inevitable word changes which the secularists at NPR no doubt would have ordered in keeping with their war on Christmas. Surely the phrase, “it is the night of our dear Savior’s birth,” would not be allowed on NPR’s airwaves.
To my amazement, the carol was performed as it was written, with all references to the Christ-child intact. On NPR!
How could this be? Where was this war on Christmas? How could I cover it if I couldn’t find it?
In despair, I went to Walmart. I knew that O’Reilly and others insist that retailers are part of the war on Christmas with their insistence on wishing customers “Happy Holidays” rather than “Merry Christmas.”
But Walmart was advertising a “Christmas gift” price guarantee of some sort. How did the secularists, with all their militant hatred of Christianity, miss this?
In despair, I considered the possibility that perhaps the militant secularists called a holiday truce in honor of, er, the holidays this year.
Either that, or somebody is manipulating facts and data in order to whip up war sentiment.
But nobody would ever do such a thing, right?
