How offensive is destroying non-religious 'Christmas' cards?

muriel_volestrangler

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Sat Dec-09-06 08:05 AM
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How offensive is destroying non-religious 'Christmas' cards?

In 2 recent British newspaper articles, I've seen the suggestion that the best thing to do with cards that bear, instead of the word 'Christmas', "Season's Greetings" or similar, is to throw them away, or burn them.

My rubbish bin is full of Christmas cards. I threw them there. No, I'm not suffering from an obsessive tidiness disorder. Well, maybe a bit, but that's not the reason that I have lobbed dozens of cards straight into the trash can. I'm no Scrooge, either. Not every card I'm sent gets dumped. Far from it. Many are kept as a source of great cheer.
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The selection process is very precise. The discarded items have one thing in common: they are not Christmas cards at all, by which I mean, as well as having no Christian images, Nativity scenes etc, they don't even mention the "C" word. I'm afraid that "happy holidays" simply will not do.
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In the United Kingdom, this time of year is a Christian festival � as it should be. It is part of our heritage. You don't have to be a fire-and-brimstone evangelist to respect a faith that still underpins traditional British values and institutions, even though much of its spiritual message was lost long ago in a fog of consumerism. Jettisoning Christmas-less cards is my tiny, almost certainly futile, gesture against the dark forces of political correctness. It's a swipe at those who would prefer to abolish Christmas altogether, in case it offends "minorities". Someone should tell them that, with only one in 15 Britons going to church on Sundays, Christians are a minority.

None of the Christmas-less cards that I have received came from a PC nutter. A few were from good friends and business acquaintances. But I rejected them anyway.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/opinion/main.jhtml?xml=/opinion/2006/12/08/do0801.xml&sSheet=/opinion/2006/12/08/ixopinion.html

There is a counter-action. The marvellously kitsch illuminations of private houses with entire confused scenes of Santa Claus, Bethlehem nativity and fairies are an unconscious public declaration that Christmas is not to be taken away. Growing congregations, especially in cathedrals, show a population that at long last realises the faith it has taken for granted is threatened by a loveless intellectual desert called secularism (offering "Season's Greetings" "Happy Holidays" and "Winterfest" - the best thing to do with such greetings is light the winter fire). Carols do not contain the best theology, but they express an accessible joy that can benefit us all.

� The Very Rev Colin Slee is the dean of Southwark

http://www.guardian.co.uk/comment/story/0,,1968143,00.html

OK, it's not quite on the scale of book burning, but writing about it in national newspapers, even in a light-hearted mood, seems so divisive and intolerant - and it's a senior Church of England clergyman advocating it. I wonder if they'd ever do that to someone's face - open a card they've been given, see it doesn't use the words 'Christmas', or a Bible scene on the front, and then chuck it straight in the bin. I can think of only one time when I've done something similar - when a Conservative election worker came to my house, and I accepted the proffered leaflet, to put it straight into the bin in front of him. I certainly meant that to be an insult - do these pair of people (and the support Jeff Randall apparently has) think it's really OK to tell their friends and colleagues "if it doesn't say Christmas, your greeting is worthless"?