The Trouble With Christmas

The Trouble With Christmas is a book written by Tom Flynn. This book presents a series of arguments why Christmas, and other holidays in that time period, should be flat out abandoned, or at least not put into the "All Of America Celebrates This, So If You Don't, You're An Outsider." In this book, he presents the problems from Santa to the Solstice, and even if you don't agree with everything he says, you end up at least having a few laughs along the way.  So, let's see what the Trouble With Christmas is.

He starts out with picking apart the past when it comes to Christmas, from the DWAMQs (Dead White Anglo Males and Queen) that made it related to Christianity and the (almost) demise from the Anti-Christianity raids of Oliver Cromwell, that started a wave even he couldn't control. After the kings were reinstated, Christmas had become little more then to close shops and play cards. It wasn't until the need for a holiday like it appeared, and Charles' Dickens "A Christmas Carol" came out, that once again it became a thing that had to be celebrated or be an outsider.

He goes on to about how the Santa myth is detrimental to a kid's psyche, trust, and critical thinking. The 'willing deceit' of children by parents is not only go to lead to major issues at a critical time when most kids are already pulling away from their parents, but the fact that most of society also lied to them about his existence immediately pulls them away from the some of the people they've been taught to trust from birth, and the society they will one day enter. So why do these disillusioned kids continue to put the myth on to their children? Some argue it's just that they'll be looked down on as 'Scrooges' and 'Grinches' if they don't teach their children, and others say that it's a subconscious need for revenge.

And then we come to the present, where in modern day America, we've only recently heard a president claim that we're able to say "Merry Christmas" again. First, Flynn counters the idea that America is a Christian Nation that seems to be held dearly to the majority of Christians hearts by talking about all the documents by prominent Americans at the founding of America (e.g. George Washington and Benjamin Franklin) talking about how they wished America to be religiously neutral, to counter the English's Christianity. Building on that point, there's no real reason that Americans of all religions should feel the need to celebrate an arbitrary holiday, Christmas, in a theoretically religious neutral county.

Going on to talk about how in our schools, stores, and homes, the fact that everyone is celebrating Christmas is often just taken and used, despite the fact that we have plenty of people in America that have separate choices. Taking examples from around the USA, he goes on to talk about how in most places that tried to remove all religious statements and icons, such as crosses, crescents, and Christmas and other main holidays, were almost immediately attacked for being an attack on Christianity. Using this info, he then affirms the fact that most institutions, public or private, invariably favor Christians over many other religions.

So, what did I think of this collection of arguments that was enclosed in this book? Well, some of it's strongest points do seem to congregate against the idea of a Santa Claus. This book's arguments make it seem that the best idea is to get rid of the Big Brother-esque, nightmare inducing, over used carrot and rod bludgeon for once and for all. However, it does suffer from some continual errors, like when it says that you should teach your children that as much as Santa Claus isn't real, that other kids have a right to believe in him, then going on to say a paragraph later that you should get your kids to tell others that Santa isn't real. Other then a couple of those problems, it ends up being a good, funny yet serious read.

I'd recommend reading it, be it for the agreement to your own beliefs, the idea of reading something new or interesting, trying to get new ideas from it, or if you just want to have a thing you can read and get mad about. Here's a link to get your hands on it: this is a link. This is not.

That's Adventure Van, reading away!