doctorvee

Okay, so on my return to regular blogging I’m going to tackle an issue which has been getting me a bit annoyed over the past month or so. I call it political correctness gone mad gone mad. You know, when people are obviously looking too hard for supposed examples of political correctness, like they’ve decided the world’s exploded before they’ve even seen a spark.

Nowadays it’s quite a regular occurance for people at this time of year to have a good old moan about the replacement of the word ‘Christmas’ with ‘Seasonal Festivity of Winteristan’. Phrases such as ‘winter lights’ being used instead of ‘Christmas lights’, and ‘seasons greetings’ instead of ‘merry Christmas’, are held up as examples of political correctness gone mad.

I am sorry, but please can you get a grip. Now, I don’t have any particular issue with the word ‘Christmas’. I am prepared to call a spade a spade and recognise that the days and weeks surrounding the 25^th of December are undoubtedly the Christmas period. But at the same time it’s something other than a Christmas period.

For me, Christmas is only half of the story of this time of year. Sure, Christmas is pretty cool, what with the presents and the shite television and the groovy lunch and all the rest of it. But what about Hogmanay? Growing up, Hogmanay was always quite special for me, because for some reason you were allowed to do all the naughty things that would earn you a smack at any other time of year — namely staying up late and drinking alcohol (only a wee bit, obviously, because I was young — but you know what it’s like). Okay, so I’m a student so that’s not such a novelty any more. But you still get shite telly, the bells and Jackie Bird’s lack of a mirror.

Also, it is no coincidence that Christmas happens in winter. To have a festival in the middle of winter is nothing new. It’s not a surprise that people might want to enjoy themselves at this time of year. Days last about two hours if you’re lucky, and it becomes routine to freeze your bollocks off when you’re waiting on the platform as one train is cancelled and the following one is twenty minutes late.

A couple of weeks ago I heard the Archbishop of Canterbury on Radio Five Live saying (and I hope I remember this correctly — I was going to listen online but it isn’t there, so I have to rely on my memory alone, which isn’t a good idea) that similar Pagan festivals predate Christmas, and it’s just that Christianity “found a better excuse” to have a celebration at the darkest and coldest time of the year. At the same time, he also pointed out that there’s nothing terribly Christian about having a robin representing this time of year.

So if anything, by using terms like ‘winter tree’, people are actually reclaiming what has been hijacked by Christians.

I am pretty sure that people of other faiths and atheists like me can respect the fact that Christians are about to hold a big religious festival, as I would similarly expect Christians to respect the festivals and customs of other faiths.* But if somebody wants to write “Seasons Greetings” instead of “Merry Christmas” in their card, what is wrong with that?

Anyway, if you think that somebody switching on winter lights instead of Christmas lights is an important issue, I reckon you need your head checked out. And on that note (even though it’s still eleven days away), merry Christmas!

*My mother always goes on about the fact that I got a couple of lessons about Eid at school, ignoring the fact that we got about twenty times as much “education” about Christianity, had to listen to several different ministers spout their shite every. single. bloody. week in assembly, had to attend Christmas and Easter services every year, and had to do tedious exercises such as “What I should thank God for”.