Merry Christmas

Merry Christmas!

From Pope Francis - not so much:

... Pope Francis steeped his Christmas message to the world Thursday in sadness for those with little cause for joy — abused children, refugees, hostages and others suffering from violence in the Middle East, Africa, Ukraine and elsewhere. ...

And, from the Prime Minister - pray for our soldiers killing ISIS barbarians in Iraq

Merry Christmas!

WestJet Christmas Miracle

Christmas wishes come true.

... The airline promised when the video views hit 200,000, it would donate flights to reunite a family over Christmas through Ronald McDonald House.

 Three million views - now that's great marketing!

Merry Christmas!

"The season of negative celebrations"

Naomi Lakritz:

With Halloween behind us, the season of negative celebrations is in full swing

... In fact, the actual holidays, from Halloween through Christmas, seem to mean less in and of themselves ... We mark these days by focusing on whom the holiday damages ( usually children or minorities) than on the day itself.

Once upon a time, we kids went trick- or- treating. We dressed up in costumes that appealed to us, ... We didn’t have to wear “caring” costumes, or suffer the indignity of adults putting toothbrushes instead of Tootsie Rolls in our treat bags ... Our lack of “caring” costumes did not prevent us from growing up to be caring adults.

...You know why all this was? Because common sense was in much greater supply in those days. ... There was no such phrase as “teachable moment”

... Remembrance Day. Instead of turning our full attention to honouring the war dead and the veterans, we will mark Remembrance Day with more disputes. ... There will be the white-poppy faction clamouring about its opposition to what it perceives to be the day’s militaristic focus.

... Once Remembrance Day is over, it’ll be time for that mother of all supposedly offensive holidays — Christmas. ...  ceaseless bickering about “Merry Christmas” versus “Season’s Greetings,” and Christmas trees versus holiday trees, and whether a fat Santa sends a dangerous message about overeating and heart attacks, and all the other nonsense.

... The idea that children must be sheltered from the heritage, traditions and holidays of their society, their faiths and their country is ludicrous, especially when you consider the alternative is to consign them to the soul-destroying prison of political correctness.

'Tis the season ...

... for people of faith to squabble.  Kelly McParland complains about proselytizing, faithful atheists, while atheist John Moore complains about McParland and all God's faithful ... and the debate spills over into the comments.

... Fa la la la lah ...la la la .. la.

Tolerance: putting up with other people’s crap

Yesterday Blazing Cat Fur highlighted an article by a prickly anti-Christian academic intolerantly belly-aching about having to put up with all the symbols of Christmas.

Today Lorne Gunter addresses the phenomenon:

Every year at about this time, there is a new batch of news stories detailing how the forces of political correctness and atheism are attempting to stamp out all public references to Christmas.

... The culprits are most often anti-Christians -- people of little or no faith who have grown tired of all the jollity and goodwill this time of year.

... A lot of modern rights advocates have convinced themselves that tolerance means agreement and affirmation, not merely acceptance.

... Tolerance means exactly putting up with all the Christmas crap and Hanukkah crap and Kwanza crap and even atheist crap, so that others will put up with whatever crap is your crap, too.

... The notion that these campaigns are altruistic efforts to shelter sensitive non-Christians from the theological imperialism of the dominant culture around them is just the latest excuse the intolerant minority is using to impose its own secular theology on the rest of us.

The rest.

Christmas

Merry Christmas to all!