Happy Holidays, Bitches!

We are discussing the war on Christmas! Or the lack of one... 
Let's talk about why December is a little more secular, and a little more globalist, than you might realize.

In this episode, we cover many of the holidays that take place in December including Kwanzaa and Hanukkah. Because there are literally dozens of holidays happening this time of year, Happy Holidays are more appropriate and acknowledge religious and cultural diversity. 

Did you know there are Christians that don't celebrate Christmas? While you may feel there is a "war on Christmas" against the Christian faith, there are subsets of Christianity that don't recognize the holiday. 

An umbrella term like "Happy Holidays" welcomes people from all backgrounds and doesn't assume that all white people are Christians (like our resident atheist, Katie). It's not about not celebrating Christmas, it's about recognizing that people come from different walks of life.

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Preston Meyer  00:09

Happy holidays.

Katie Dooley  00:19

Or laughing already. So bad. And welcome to another episode of the holly watermelon Podcast. I'm Katie. I'm Preston. And today, this is our last episode of 2020.

Preston Meyer  00:32

Oh man, I hope the new year is something good.

Katie Dooley  00:34

And I'll just say right now we're going to take three, three weeks between episodes instead of two. But we will see you all in 2021. And hope it's better than 2020. But today, I think this is going to be our most controversial episode yet. six episodes in but

Preston Meyer  00:56

yeah, I mean, it's a low bar, but we're gonna, we're gonna either launch right over it or fall right into it.

Katie Dooley  01:04

So today, we're talking about Happy Holidays, versus Merry Christmas, or on Christmas. I, this isn't all going to be about the war on Christmas, but it's definitely part of our conversation today. And I think why Happy Holidays should be everyone's preferred term.

Preston Meyer  01:29

Honestly, I don't think it needs to be a preferred term. But if you're the person who shouts at other people for saying Happy Holidays, you're the bad guy.

Katie Dooley  01:39

Yeah. Um, so there's a few reasons. I think this and we're, I think we'll just dive right into though.

Preston Meyer  01:47

All right. So what else is going on in December?

Katie Dooley  01:50

I mean, there's a lot going on December, which is why I don't have which is why like, have holiday.

Preston Meyer  01:57

Nice and generic, nice

Katie Dooley  01:59

engineer. So we have a Buddhist holiday called Bodhi day. We have a Jewish holiday called Hanukkah,

Preston Meyer  02:07

which isn't always in December, but it is this year. Also.

Katie Dooley  02:11

Diwali this year was in November, but I think it can fall in December as well. That sounds right. Also, the the Muslim calendar changes every year. So it's kind of good. It doesn't fall this year. But you could definitely fall in December. We have Kwanzaa which is an African American. It's not a religious holiday particular but it does fall in December. We have Zorro Astron holiday called Zara thoughts. D so we have to Hindu holidays Danu sense grantee and Geeta J on TV.

Preston Meyer  02:51

I love listening to you say these things, but I know that I wouldn't pronounce them any better.

Katie Dooley  02:58

Yeah, please throw me sure comment with the phonetics farm, you

Preston Meyer  03:04

send us your homemade MP threes and, or

Katie Dooley  03:08

whatever. And then we also have other Christian or near Christian holidays. So we have you all we have St. Nicholas stay. Epiphany happens in January, but it's kind of related. So there's a lot going on. And there's actually a lot going on all year round. But this is what we call the holiday season. Because

Preston Meyer  03:27

gay white, Christian centric American culture. We focus on one thing, we have one bank holiday in December, and that's December 25. For the white Christians, because let's be real, nobody was thinking about black Christians when they plan this.

Katie Dooley  03:46

And then of course, there's people who don't prescribe anything.

Preston Meyer  03:50

Absolutely loads of atheists who tend to celebrate bank holidays, which include Christmas.

Katie Dooley  03:59

It's always get saw or allowed. Right?

Preston Meyer  04:02

At least as a bank holiday almost every month. I think except for June. Think so. Yeah. Oh, bank

Katie Dooley  04:12

holidays are great religions.

Preston Meyer  04:15

I think we talked about it earlier in an earlier episode about how there's a faith system built up around money a little bit. So bank holidays doesn't even sound that weird in this context.

Katie Dooley  04:28

So I think that's one of my biggest reasons for Happy Holidays. I will say Merry Christmas on Christmas, but if I don't know someone personally, I will say happy holidays because I don't know what they prescribe to. They prescribed anything at all.

Preston Meyer  04:43

Yeah, I'll say Merry Christmas to the people that I know celebrate Christmas. I'll often say Happy Hanukkah to the people that know that I celebrate Hanukkah, which is irregular. That as a Christian, I celebrate Hanukkah.

Katie Dooley  04:59

Party You actually have the honor, right?

Preston Meyer  05:01

I mean, it's the greeting for the holiday. It just makes sense that it's if you know you're there for a specific event, you're going to remember that and say the appropriate greeting. I think, like when you show up to a person's birthday party, even if it's not on their birthday, you're usually going to say Happy Birthday like that. Because

Katie Dooley  05:19

it's true. Right? And with that being said, I am conscientious of I tried to be conscientious, I definitely don't know. 10 for 10, for sure, but when I know it is coming up, I will try to make a point of texting my Muslim friends Happy Eid. He because he changes like forget, Monica. Fortunately, because you celebrate it. I know it's coming up on a text my handful of Jewish friends, Happy Hanukkah, and they all wish me Merry Christmas in return. Right? So

Preston Meyer  05:53

it's almost like being a good friend works out. Yeah, it's frustrating that there's so much what appears to be contention around the holidays, like, there's the obvious Christmas is super stressful. And people want to make that as positive as possible. And so to do that, they start fights over what to call it and how to greet each other.

Katie Dooley  06:22

And we're going to move into I guess this is probably a good segue move into how Christian Christmas is. And even the fact that there were there are the fact that there are non believers that celebrate Christmas, like myself, that some of these things can get really contentious and exclusive, exclusive. There's gatekeepers everywhere. Absolutely. So we were we were talking before we hit play. A great example is we have a relative we have a relative that, you know, this time of the year, the social media posts are coming Jesus is the reason for the season, like how can you celebrate Christmas if you don't believe in Christ, and it's a very exclusive story for me, part of me was like, I should just not show up on your because they're presuming everyone believes is as a Christian. And yeah, I think that's counterintuitive to what this time of year is about, I think it should be about inclusion and whether you believe that Jesus is the Son of God or not, shouldn't exclude you from whatever your celebrations look like, whether that's Yeah, anything from Hanukkah, Kwanzaa to Christmas,

Preston Meyer  07:51

it's, it's weird that the secular culture that we've built up in North America finds its roots very strongly in Protestant Christianity. Protestant schools are what turned into our public schools for most of North America. Occasionally, it's actually Catholic schools and started the public schools. But mostly it's the Protestants. And so that Protestant morality in the Protestant worldview is the primary source of the way the secularist movement is built up. And so Christmas went from I think that was very Christian where most families when they celebrate Christmas, they've read from the one of the Gospels, usually Luke, sometimes Matthew, depending on your family and your preference. And there's very few people to do that. I think in my own family, we've done that three times. I and my family's occasionally sometimes pretty into their face, at least a little bit. And that

Katie Dooley  09:03

didn't sound wishy washy at all pressed and occasionally, sometimes at least a little bit.

Preston Meyer  09:09

My family is wonderful. But we're not consistent on our Christmas traditions at all. And I think that's actually probably pretty normal for the population at large. There's a handful of things that we usually do like a gift exchange, which is not specifically tied to Christianity at all. People give gifts that's what you do when you like people pretty often money for Christmas, Preston odd just doesn't have to be for Christmas.

Katie Dooley  09:39

December Preston, that's a secret.

Preston Meyer  09:43

But there is also a narrative in the Bible for Christmas gift giving, which is a lot of the justification for the hyper Christian theists Christmas movement, defenders This sounds like a weird set of words to jumble all up together. But I think you follow that if if you're really committed to the biblical Christmas gift giving still is okay. And so you can't get mad at the people who do it, which is kind of nice. Interesting.

Katie Dooley  10:17

I think it's, it's funny that you say that, you know, traditionally people had, you know, celebrate Christmas as a Christian holiday. I know here in North America, like Christmas and Easter, the two times churches are filled. Because everyone feels like they need to be there on those days.

Preston Meyer  10:36

And that's where the church is, makes it real money.

Katie Dooley  10:39

So my mom was raised Ukrainian Orthodox, and I think it's an interesting take on North America and North American religion and how they celebrate Christmas. But in their house, they called December 25, Canadian Christmas, and that's where you would give gifts and Santa would come. And then they would call January 6, or epiphany, Ukrainian Christmas, and that's where you went to church and the priest would come and it was this very religious thing. So I think that's an interesting take on it.

Preston Meyer  11:07

Right? There's there's my church Christmas and my secular and my

Katie Dooley  11:11

consumerism Christmas. Yeah. So I don't know what that says about Christmas in North America. But I think we can agree that it's not particularly Christian anymore.

Preston Meyer  11:24

Right. I went to Ukrainian school for several years growing up. And I thought it was really funny that there was a joke going around fairly often that the Ukrainians, the Ukrainians, were the smart ones. They had Christmas once everything was on sale. So wonderful. So

Katie Dooley  11:43

I, this always bothers me, and I know it's a tangent for episode. So we have Christmas Day, the 25th, which is the birth of Jesus. And then January 6 is epiphany, which is where Jesus became known to the wise men, or Ukrainian Christmas in the Orthodox Church. Those, everyone, those are the 12 days of Christmas. Those are the 12 days of Christmas, not the 12 days leading up to Christmas, not December 13. That's what those are not the 12 days of Christmas. But the 12 days of Christmas, are from December 25 to January 6, which is epiphany, or 12th. Night, if you're a Shakespeare fan, 12th night is epiphany. And they're traditionally that's the celebration, where you get a dress up and masquerade and be silly, PSA, those are the 12 days of Christmas. If you advertise anything in your business as the holidays Christmas before Christmas, I'll be mad at you.

Preston Meyer  12:40

I think it's really kind of funky. Thinking about how calendars changed to like that the Orthodox Christmas, not just Ukrainian, but the whole orthodox group. They stuck to the Julian calendar when we progressed on to the Gregorian calendar. And so we adjusted their calendars. And we said, Okay, you guys, when you aren't going to adjust your liturgical calendar, we that pushes your Christmas into January. So Haha, you have to remember when your Christmas is now.

Katie Dooley  13:14

Well, and this is I guess this is a good point to make for how Christians Christmas is like theirs their I don't think there's any proof that Jesus was actually born zero on December 21, a long standing calendar changes. And I think there have been at least two calendar changes since his birth. I read years ago, that the closest estimate that they have to Jesus's birthday is actually put it in April.

Preston Meyer  13:43

It's so being a person who worked intimately with the translation of the Gospels, most especially, it was really interesting to go through and really spend a lot of time with the stories and look at the words and whatnot. And the narrative and understanding where especially Luke is getting his information. He's the one who tells us about the census that everyone had to go and be taxed. And that's why Mary and Joseph went to Bethlehem. There's no historical proof that there was a census in the years surrounding when it's likely Jesus was born, which makes it a weird thing to have Luke put in the book. But it's entirely possible that he was right. And we just don't have the historical data. But even then, that's not why they travelled to Bethlehem. It was almost certainly a wise move on the part of the government to count people when they have already gathered for a thing. People don't like the government. They're not going to go way out of their way, especially traveling 100 Miles don't get to help the government that don't like this, that's not going to happen. Look at the way people are behaving this year. And people We're not that different 2000 years ago. So I believe they were traveling for already existent Big Deal holiday, a reason when they were expected to go to the temple in Jerusalem, from all over Israel, or Judea and Galilee. And so I feel inclined to say very confidently It was March or April, for the Passover of that year. And of course, the story gets more exciting as Mary is not welcome in the family home because she's pregnant. Joseph says it's not his. Yeah. But that's not where we're diving into the depths of the story. That's not our point today.

Katie Dooley  15:46

I know there are also a lot of other religious figures that have prominent dates in

Preston Meyer  15:52

December, we were looking at one of one of the dates you mentioned, celebrating in this year was the death of a major figure. And now I can't remember what it was or who it was. I was that Xero sauce. Yes, it was definitely. That's our Astromon. Yes, the death of Zarathustra or tsar? Alas, Alastor. You're allowed to say either. Okay, unless I'm way wrong on this, that two names for the same guy based on linguistic differences. Yeah, so birth of Jesus death czar. Alastor. And there are plenty of religious theorists who think that there's some important connections between the development of Christianity and the influence of source Austrian ism. There's

Katie Dooley  16:43

also I mean, there's also we can't ignore the winter solstice is right around this time.

Preston Meyer  16:48

Absolutely. You will, is something that's kind of interesting, I only found out in my study in preparation for this episode of our podcast that we assume a lot of about the origins of you'll and the Yule Log. But we actually have no concrete proof that it predates the Christian tradition. Even though everybody says that it does. Everybody's like, yeah, it comes from the Germanic paganism. And we don't have any evidence for that. But everybody as far back as we can find is like no, this thing that's been going on for a long time, a long time.

Katie Dooley  17:32

It's interesting. You bring up paganism, because there are denominations of Christianity that don't celebrate Christmas, because they believe it's a pagan holidays. Yes. Back to like, we should just say happy holidays.

Preston Meyer  17:48

Christmas isn't exclusively Christian,

Katie Dooley  17:51

not even across the board. So what are some of the reasons that these denominations think it's a pagan holiday? Well,

Preston Meyer  18:00

my favorite is the idea that, Oh, well, Christmas must be Jesus birthday. We've said it often enough throughout history, that that's kind of the focal point of the whole deal. And people like to Jehovah's Witnesses and Christadelphians, whether we've mentioned before, in passing, they both are very opposed to Christmas. Jehovah's Witnesses are also really against Easter. I don't know if that's true about Christadelphians.

Katie Dooley  18:31

I know Jehovah Witnesses celebrate a version of Issei. They call it Passover,

Preston Meyer  18:35

because they call it Easter pagan, because the name is from them.

Katie Dooley  18:44

I know what you're talking about, to have to Google it.

Preston Meyer  18:49

It's bothering me that I can't remember how it was pronounced in that part of the world. You got a star, you've got a star. You've got estar. I don't even know if I pronounced that right. But that's the way it looks like I'm supposed to say it. There's a lot of different gods in that area have very similar names are probably the same person, just cultural shift in the their names. Kind of weird that there's a lot of contention on this part of it as pagan for Easter. But for Christmas, they're just like, No, the whole thing is pagan. Even though there's all the things you need in the Bible to say it's okay to celebrate Christmas. I

Katie Dooley  19:29

read one thing. Is it in your notes? Maybe that Jehovah Witnesses don't celebrate Christmas because they don't celebrate birthdays? Yes. So it's because it's Jesus's birthday. No, and they don't celebrate birthdays. Yeah, and I know Christadelphians don't celebrate birthdays. But I don't know. I don't think that's a reasoning for Christmas. I think it's because Christmas is pagan that might

Preston Meyer  19:51

be like we have to dig a little deeper into that one. My favorite thing about the whole birthday thing though, is so don't celebrate birthday. Is because birthdays are basically the pagan thing that you do to honor the gods. So you honor your God by celebrating his birthday cheeses. The God of the Christians can't celebrate his birthday. No.

20:18

No

Preston Meyer  20:19

birthday either. It's just a little weird. I wouldn't call it a double standard or anything terribly negative. It just feels weird to me that

Katie Dooley  20:31

the Son of God himself is a lot of birthday, right?

Preston Meyer  20:34

Well, you know what, though, that actually does make a little bit of sense. For Jehovah's Witnesses. Jesus isn't God. He's the Son of God, but He is not God. We talked about this before in our monotheism versus Heno theism versus polytheism. For Christadelphians and Jehovah's Witnesses, there is one God and Jesus is the Son of God who is not divine himself at all. So actually, that feels like that lines. Not celebrating the birthday of ourselves. Look at that. You caught us right here figuring it out in real time.

Katie Dooley  21:12

Some other very pagan things Santa Claus and his elves that's checks the elves.

Preston Meyer  21:19

Okay. And there's no reason that either one of them would be in the Bible. Let's be real. The elves definitely pagan. There's no argument against that. That's very non Christian, very

Katie Dooley  21:31

isolated.

Preston Meyer  21:32

Yes. However, could Old St. Nicholas is Yeah, he is a Christian person. He was around about 300 ad ish.

Katie Dooley  21:45

Really good. Katie, St. Nicholas was safe.

Preston Meyer  21:50

What a champ. At least you can keep up. And so he was known for giving gifts secretly to children all the time. He also used to beat people up when they abused children, which is a really fun part of the story that's been shifted a little over to Black Pete I think. Yeah. So Black Pete? Oh, yeah. Having St. Nicholas is slave Black Pete. And, like, a little piece of me wants to just call him, Peter. But there's plenty of reasons not to make it more ambiguous and Christianity. And Black Pete is keeping the information alive. Well, hopefully we've shifted our attitudes. I really hope we've shifted our attitude. I

Katie Dooley  22:40

mean, I was reading last Christmas, some contention over, like Peter and like, fair enough, but we

Preston Meyer  22:48

still have people doing blackface. Yeah, like Peter, cuz there's, that's I mean, we don't have a shortage of black people in our communities that we could say, Hey, you want to be Pete for our Christmas thing this year? Which, I mean, asking somebody does feel a little racist, but it's a lot better than asking your white friend. Hey, we Black Pete.

Katie Dooley  23:11

My mom was beaten by Black Peter. Yeah. Nice. Germany. Cool. Yeah.

Preston Meyer  23:19

I like crumpets a little bit better. Because he's not human. It's less racist. Yeah. I mean, this is obviously awfulness to compass. Oh, but it's not properly racist. As far as I know. Unless there's some backstory there that I don't know that compass is actually one of those horrible, deformed stories of a Jew out to hurt Christians, which is one of those stories that got around a lot.

Katie Dooley  23:46

So back to Santa Claus. Yeah, very popular Christmas tradition that isn't Christian at all.

Preston Meyer  23:52

Yeah, he's just giving gifts not because of any particular calendar necessity, but because he was a nice guy. He showed his love to the kids who needed help, or at least needed some real concrete affection in a very familiar way. So over the course of time, St. Nicholas, St. Nicholas died on us and we kept them alive, kept alive St. Nicholas days early December. So somewhere these dates kind of merged. Yeah, we got lazy and we decided we can only have one bank holiday in December. So

Katie Dooley  24:29

is that lasers that industry has to keep us working? See?

Preston Meyer  24:32

That's a real philosophical question. I like it. I don't have an answer for it. But I like the question.

Katie Dooley  24:43

We have other Christmas traditions that are not Christian. Absolutely. The Christmas tree is not actually a Christian. I

Preston Meyer  24:50

don't think there's any reason to think that it's a Christian thing. Interestingly enough, there's a couple of passages in the Hebrew Bible, specifically warning against using trees in worship, King Josiah did a lot of reforms to the religion right before the downfall of the nation and the exile. And with some of those included tearing down groves that they had set up near the shrines all across the nation that ended up being associated with ASHA, who we talked about before the the mother goddess worshipped in Israel. And King Josiah had these torn down with fear that the worship was wildly inappropriate and sort of worship with trees and that being contrary to approved worship, has the whole philosophy seems to have been dropped with what I believe as a German tradition initially, yes, trees are German.

Katie Dooley  25:55

While the German

Preston Meyer  25:59

they gave us Krampus and Christmas trees, one of those things is far more pleasant than the other. There's definitely loads of hyper localized Christmas traditions. Oh, absolutely.

Katie Dooley  26:09

My dear friend is big on the gnomes as popular in Scandinavia, she has gnomes all over her house.

Preston Meyer  26:18

That sounds great.

Katie Dooley  26:19

That's the only one I can think of. I know there's I know there's more. I

Preston Meyer  26:23

have a couple of friends that collect gnomes. I don't know if they do it specifically for Christmas. But I know that they have Christmas themed gnomes in addition to the rest of their collection. There. Oh, gingerbread houses? I doubt it. I think it's just Germans.

Katie Dooley  26:39

Germans know how to party. Right? Yeah,

Preston Meyer  26:43

it's just a fun thing to do to keep the kids busy. And you know, if a kid can have a chance to make a mess and not get screamed at you know, he's going to jump on it. So gingerbread houses all away. I think I've only ever built three gingerbread houses my whole life. Though it didn't help us here. I did help with a giant gingerbread Colosseum a few years ago. That was so good fun. We didn't have a lot, but it helped a tiny little bit.

Katie Dooley  27:07

We were gifted a gingerbread house two years ago because we wanted a house. And we couldn't get one. Yeah. And the year we were gifted it. We were gifted it at Christmas. So I didn't make it. And I was like, Oh, don't build it next year. And then last year, I was so busy. I didn't make it. So it's still obviously we're not going to eat it. But I still have a gingerbread kit and I'm gonna make it.

Preston Meyer  27:27

Let's be honest, most gingerbread houses you don't eat Cheerio. It's a waste to candy when the candy isn't gonna go bad, but you're not going to eat it after you've put it on.

Katie Dooley  27:37

You always plaster can lead a nibble. Otherwise,

Preston Meyer  27:40

it'd be hugely depressing. But the gingerbread itself very seldom is eaten now.

Katie Dooley  27:45

So maybe let's talk about what the war on Christmas is some examples where it originates from and how because my goal and our goal for the podcast is to mind

Preston Meyer  28:01

the word lottery is to help people understand that there is no war on Christmas

Katie Dooley  28:09

and and maybe why if you don't know you should they happy holidays or you should venture to find out what they what they do you celebrate.

Preston Meyer  28:18

Yeah, absolutely. What is this? If you have friends who don't celebrate Christmas, saying Merry Christmas to them is a little bit weird. Not bad, just weird.

Katie Dooley  28:30

Well, I I will always say thank you. Right. And I think most people would, but again, it's you know, how do we bridge these gaps between people and you know, whether maybe with a stranger you don't give a shit but with your friends like to make that effort to say Happy Hanukkah or Happy Eid or Happy Kwanzaa I think means a lot. And I think that's why is when you don't know

Preston Meyer  28:57

that's, as far as I can tell. The reason why we've shifted towards saying Happy Holidays, is that if you as a Jewish person, keep getting people saying Merry Christmas to you, you feel a little bit anonymous, like nobody recognizes you, and that you're almost invisible in a couple of painful ways, I think. And this the big move to say happy holidays to people is primarily pushed in the retail industry. That's as far as I can tell where it really started coming from because you want people to feel welcome in your shops. Oh, yeah, rat well are all December long. Yeah. And so I mean, even though you're obviously going to be selling Christmas stuff, if you're selling things almost always. There's the need to have all of your customers feel welcome. You don't want to have that slightly alienating anonymity of you have no idea who I am. If you're wishing me a happy this thing that I'll celebrate Yeah, even though usually, like, say Merry Christmas, happy Hanukkah to somebody who doesn't celebrate those things, who usually get a thank you and probably the same greeting in return, which, I mean, if I say Merry Christmas to you, you can assume that I celebrate Christmas so you can safely say back to me Merry Christmas presents. But if I refuse to say Happy Hanukkah to a Jewish friend or neighbor or somebody who I know is Jewish, your deck? Absolutely. I'm a bad neighbor and not a friend. And that's, oh, super frustrating.

Katie Dooley  30:39

Yeah, I mean, I'm sure there's people out there who think we're being, you know, maybe overly politically correct. But like you said, as an atheist who celebrates Christmas Yeah. To hear family say, Well, if you don't believe you shouldn't be here is exactly that. And I'm not even in a minority. Right? I'm, I'm a white font, we'll call it a faux Christian, right? Because I celebrate Christmas, I sell, celebrate Easter. I don't go to church. I'll eat candy at both instances, is basically what I do. And spend time with family. Yeah, some people say, you know, whatever is definitely isolating. So I can't imagine if you're especially Jewish. In Canada in particular, there's honestly the percentage of the population that's Jewish is very small. It's very small worldwide. I know, two Jewish people. And both are nonpracticing. I can't imagine how frustrating it would be to not see yourself represented in the world, especially when it's such a big holiday in your religion,

Preston Meyer  31:55

right? Yeah, Hanukkah is a big deal. Like it's not one of the High Holy Days, but it's kind of a big deal. And it's kind of a bummer that it can go unrecognized. So often, it's very seriously overshadowed by the far more popular Christmas. But if you go into a store and you see a white person, so often now we assume all they must be Christian, we can wish them Merry Christmas, if you see a dark skinned dude with great bone structure. It's not fair to to assume that they don't celebrate Christmas.

Katie Dooley  32:30

Absolutely. Well, we talked about this in our last episode about globalism. And I know white Muslims. I know. Like not just like, pale Arabic people. I know what Muslims, I was gonna say Caucasian, but Arab Arab people are actually Caucasian. Yeah, I know, North American white folk that are Muslim. And I mean, India is a great example of as a nation and you obviously we have a lot of immigrants and second generation people from India, in Canada. India is like very evenly split between Hindu, Muslim and Christian. So you can't I had a job where I worked with three people from India, one was Muslim, one was Hindu. And one was Christian. Nice. And yes, absolutely. It's like, how do you can't assume, right? But so where did the war on Christmas come from? Is this Is it legitimate precedent? You already said? It was bullshit?

Preston Meyer  33:30

Yeah, no, it's It's nonsense. There's no war on Christmas employers, as far as I can tell, based on observation, and I'm going to be honest, not a lot of in depth study, but plenty of observation on just culture and, and reading plenty of employers handbooks, working in retail, the drive to say happy holidays, instead of Merry Christmas is just to make sure that nobody feels like they're being left out a little bit. But you used a word that has gone out of my mind. I said, isolated, isolated. Yeah. I like that word. That it's, it feels also a little bit like you're being pushed to do a thing that you haven't made any commitment to do. I have no interest in doing pretty often. The the need to make a nation homogenized is a problem. Yeah, unity is great. But Unity is a lot better when it can also include diversity. Absolutely.

Katie Dooley  34:38

Well, that's where moderation is important. I think it's also hard to say, especially in North America, that there's a war on Christmas when Christianity rain. Supre right. Maybe in Saudi Arabia, there's a war on Christmas. I don't doubt it. I doubt it. I don't know. But when it's Christianity is the largest religion in the world. It's the most prescribed your religion in the world. And definitely that is the case in North America. Oh, yeah. You Christians have a persecution complex. They said, Yeah,

Preston Meyer  35:12

it's true. I mean, we started off our history in the first century, heavily persecuted, there was this cult that came out of the Jewish religion, and hated by the Jews, because they weren't following the rules. And hated by the Romans, because they wouldn't worship the Roman gods. And it took a couple 100 years, and then the Christians ended up on top a couple 100 years went by, and I almost got squished entirely by the Muslims, and then came back and just leaned real hard on that persecution thing ever since. What's really frustrating, and we'll get into it later on talking about dumb Christian sects. Chris, Christians have been persecuted by other Christians, way more than anybody outside of Christianity has disputed Christians.

Katie Dooley  36:05

I'm reading a book right now. It's not related. Wow. Yeah. So it's about Queen Elizabeth the first and her reign, and there's leave, there's been a few lines in it, where they're like, Oh, God was Protestant today, or God was Catholic today. And I was like, it's like, it makes me laugh. And I mean, it kind of comes back to like prayer and worship and whatever. But it's like, they worship the same God. And he, you know, obviously, Catholics and Protestants are fighting Oh, he decides one side show in one day and the next slide show in the other day. So I like that God was Protestant today, or God was Catholic today.

Preston Meyer  36:43

Make sense? If you want to believe that all of your victories and losses are decided by God. I mean, causes some issues when you look at the Greater theology and cosmology. But it's, it's an easy enough crush for an awful lot of people to lean on.

Katie Dooley  37:00

So I What would you say to someone as a Christian yourself? Who might feel like Christmas is under threat to them? You know, when Starbucks makes their takes Christmas trees off their mugs? Or whatever the fuck they do? I don't even know anymore. Like, what would you say to someone who is feeling threatened? Because they think GRAY Like if? How to Yeah, how do you? How do you bring them? Bring them closer? Well,

Preston Meyer  37:34

first, I'd have to start by asking them how they feel that Christmas is threatened. No, I've never heard anybody say it anybody else. You shouldn't celebrate Christmas, which is a weird thing that I've spent plenty of time with Jehovah's Witnesses. And the presentation has always been, we don't celebrate Christmas. Not you shouldn't, which is a really weird position to hear Christians take because most of us are familiar with the Christians who say you shouldn't have abortions. You shouldn't do this. You shouldn't do that. And it gets really tiring. So having these hyper aggressive Jehovah's Witnesses knock on the door, and being aggressive in their approach, but also actually really reasonable in the delivery is really relieving. But yeah, I've I've never heard anybody say, You shouldn't celebrate Christmas. It doesn't feel like there's a war on Christmas.

Katie Dooley  38:34

I have actually had the opposite and my real job when it comes to Christmas cards when you know, what do you want to autumn? And I've heard I've heard a few I've probably heard two or three people say it has to be merry Christmas. None of this happy holidays bullshit. Right? Like it's Christmas. It's Christmas. It's Jesus. It's Jesus birthday.

Preston Meyer  38:57

Well, if that's what you're sending your Christmas cards to fine, but the attitude still sucks. And honestly,

Katie Dooley  39:04

that's what bothers me more is the attitude behind it that just put Merry Christmas on the card because I've definitely done cards where people just like put Merry Christmas on the karma cool. Merry Christmas on the car. But when it's followed by none of this happy holidays bullshit and like you need to watch A Christmas Carol. Which is a completely secular Christmas story right to just so everyone knows I love

Preston Meyer  39:29

I don't remember. Is it any specifically Christian elements in that movie at all? Or well, okay, I see a movie. I've watched several different A Christmas Carol movies. I have not read the book.

Katie Dooley  39:42

I like reading it. I think at the end when he says he's saved. He does say something like having in the saints be praised. But I think that's about as religious as it gets. But it was England when Dickens was the Live, so it would have been a very Christian. Oh, absolutely. I mean, it's still quite a Christian country, the Christian

Preston Meyer  40:04

overtones would have been assumed by the readers for sure.

Katie Dooley  40:08

Do we want to talk about Melania? And the wall, which I think is, I just think this is a funny anecdote.

Preston Meyer  40:16

And it's not even fresh news anymore. But it's new enough, it is this year leading into the preparations for the election.

Katie Dooley  40:24

So I mean, they won't be spending Christmas in the White House

Preston Meyer  40:29

really well. Well, they know it's January 20, is when we got the new president. I guess

Katie Dooley  40:34

that's nice, you know, this house before Chris, right.

Preston Meyer  40:38

But, you know, kicking them out of the house early isn't a huge problem, because Melania didn't want to decorate. She is recorded. And I've read about it. A while ago, back when it was fresh news. I actually didn't bother going and watching the video and hearing the audio until a couple of days ago. Say it out loud press and I have to read it. I know. All right, let's say a word of the First Lady of the United States of America. Melania. Trump actually said and is recorded saying, Who gives a fuck about Christmas stuff and decorations when talking about decorating the White House for Christmas. And CNN and a whole bunch of others blew up with this news that Melania is leading the war on Christmas, which may have been why Georgia voted against Trump this year. I mean, you have to have offended a lot of the Christians who are already worried about a war on Christmas.

Katie Dooley  41:39

Well, and I that's why I think it's interesting. And obviously she didn't know she was being recorded. But I think it's interesting coming from a Republican First Lady, right? When, and every president ever and probably for a long time still is Christian, and especially a Republican. Christian. It was very interesting to hear

Preston Meyer  41:58

you say you say that, but I know most of the presidents were Christian. There's actually a lot of doubt on how Christian Washington was. Donald Trump has been inside a church. I could lose a finger fingers to count.

Katie Dooley  42:18

Yes, but they all have to put on the

Preston Meyer  42:21

facade. Yes. So and if he does belong to a church, how long he has gone to that church? I don't know. And but

Katie Dooley  42:28

this is a another episode for another day. But we will talk about the No True Scotsman fallacy. So I mean, Trump has Christian who ended the No True Scotsman fallacy, right? Like,

Preston Meyer  42:41

he says he's a Christian. So that's all we can do. Yeah.

Katie Dooley  42:45

So, like you said, another discussion on why Westboro Baptist Church are Christian.

Preston Meyer  42:51

Right. Just, er, I guess that's enough. Yeah.

Katie Dooley  42:55

I mean, it has to be at the end of it.

Preston Meyer  43:02

The problem is just leaning into that fallacy bit a little bit. The people who say they are versus the people who act like they are. One MC is a bad name for the other. Oh, absolutely.

Katie Dooley  43:12

But I it goes back to the story you mentioned in their, in their very first episode of the good atheist, right, so any final thoughts?

Preston Meyer  43:23

Just the idea that there's way too many holidays in December, you shouldn't be making assumptions about people that you don't know very well. I have a good handful of Wiccan friends and other pagans and that I hang out with occasionally, Well, honestly, not this year, because this year is sucked there within my circle of friendly contacts. And there's loads going on this month loads to celebrate. Christmas is just one of many options. And there's a tradition that I noticed when I lived in New Jersey for a little while, they put candles up in their windows. I think I've seen like two houses do that here. And I don't think I ever noticed it before I went away. But there's a couple people to do here. And this, this idea of bringing light into the darkest time of the year is kind of nice for Christians. It's very strictly tied to Jesus, Jesus, the light of the world come into the world for Christmas. And a time when we need that light when it's all dark for so much of the day. It's kind of cool, similar, but wildly different tradition among the Jews of Hanukkah. It's hard because ultimately about the rededication of the temple. But there's an awful lot of emphasis on that fight for the liberty to celebrate their religion that led to the dedication of the temple. And then there's the miracle of the oil which is represented in the lampstand and the candlesticks today have more light. And then of course that you will love we mentioned before that there's still arguments about when we started that and who we stole it from. But light is such a big deal. We like fire a lot. Whole lot. Right? That's what makes us different from the apes who are also using boats and spear fishing. Yeah, 2020 has been a weird year. So fire is great. And whatever your lighting on fire this year to speed with you by the late Middle

Katie Dooley  45:42

Ages Christian Hey, Preston, you know what I want for Christmas?

Preston Meyer  45:50

What do you want for Christmas?

Katie Dooley  45:51

I want. You are congregant to share our podcast with one friend.

Preston Meyer  45:58

They'll be a wonderful gift to me. And to you, I suppose. I would love to have this podcast grow and spread knowledge and factual information and the ability to talk about religious about it. Absolutely. So it's not nearly enough laughter with religion. So

Katie Dooley  46:20

the greatest gift you can give this Christmas is the holy water pot holy watermelon podcast to a friend or family member and it would be a gift to ask him as well.

Preston Meyer  46:31

I agree what a wonderful idea.