Friday, March 29, 2024

Overadvertising is fault of Christians

While John LaFleur has said some things in the past with an intelligent ring to them, his column (“Retailers sold out Christmas to be politically correct,” SN 11/30) showed little more than his own arrogance and complete ignorance of any tradition besides his own. Yes, it is true that Kwanzaa was fabricated to be a holiday near Christmas, but this does not mean that other ones were. The celebration of the Winter Solstice by far outdates Christmas. Do you seriously believe that Jesus was born mid-winter? If anything, Christmas was strategically placed to draw others away from celebrating Winter Solstice - oh wait, so were most of the Christian holidays.

His complete ignorance of other religions does not equate them with being invalid. Saying that pagans will decorate their trees with entrails is like banning you from a petting zoo because you might sacrifice the goats as early Christians did. Pagans are not “overexaggerating the importance” of their holidays. We celebrate the birth of the sun god, which also sounds vaguely familiar since we had the tradition first and we all know that Christians would never put their holiday in the place of someone else’s. Pagans have the right to see their displays publicly, if for no other reason than to educate people like LaFleur.

I suggest LaFleur take a different view: Christmas is no longer about the birth of Jesus in our society. It is celebrated as the day a guy wearing red and riding on a sleigh delivers presents. He should stop blaming his problems on those of us with valid traditions and blame it on the Christians who over-advertise his holiday.

Susie Farnell
art education sophomore

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