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Xmas Bonus Episode - The War on Xmas
26 Plays5 years ago
Josh and M update you on the annual war on Christmas!
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Transcript
Christmas Bonus Episode
00:00:09
Speaker
The podcaster's guide to the conspiracy, brought to you today by Josh Addison and Dr. M. Denton.
00:00:19
Speaker
Ding Dong, merrily on high, it's a bonus episode of the podcast's Guide to the Conspiracy for Christmas, or if you're a patron, for Christmas Eve, and if you're not a patron for Boxing Day, and then of course if you're in the Northern Hemisphere or outside of the time zone of Aotearoa New Zealand, then I actually don't know when this is going out, and you're probably not listening to it live anyway, but
00:00:46
Speaker
Merry Christmas! Yes, so Santa has had a good rummage around in his sack and pulled out a special bonus for you, and by sack I of course remain a bag full of toys and not a slang term for his scrotum. Well I'm glad you clarified that. Nothing in there for us. No, we thought we'd just chuck a little bonus at you, because it's Christmas time. Time for miracles.
The 'War on Christmas': Myth or Reality?
00:01:06
Speaker
And also because we haven't talked about the war on Christmas food. No, you've not. So we almost choked on the war on Christmas just then.
00:01:12
Speaker
Yes, no, we haven't talked about the war on Christmas at all. It's most strange. Well, no, we have. We have done well on Christmas in the past. Not recently, not this year, not this Christmas period. Or indeed, last Christmas when I gave you my heart and the very next day you gave it away. No worse thing you deserve. Or the year before that, which was probably going to be Snoopy's Christmas, a song which many people hate and yet I actually somewhat love. I worked in a shop for like four Christmases, so any Christmas-related things give me PTSD these days.
00:01:41
Speaker
I just learned recently that the Wonderful Christmas Time one is by Paul McCartney. Yeah. Now even more reason for me to hate Paul McCartney. The Frog Chorus wasn't sufficient. That song and the Santa Baby one. Santa Baby. Ah, those ones just got hammered into my skull working in a shop. I hate them more than I have words to express. Anyway, so maybe I'm part of the war on Christmas. Maybe I'm a collaborator.
00:02:10
Speaker
You've always been a collaborator, Josh. I mean, that's basically your role in life is to stop, wait and listen. Yes.
00:02:18
Speaker
Now, for those of you who are going for war on Christmas, which is probably none of you, but just in case, just in case, there is a school of thought largely by conservatives, particularly conservatives of a religious bent, claiming that there is a massive liberal conspiracy out to get rid of Christmas, and more importantly, to remove Christ from Christmas. And it's actually even resembles people talking about, oh,
00:02:48
Speaker
People don't even spell Christmas properly anymore. They write Xmas instead. Now, here's a little interesting factoid about history. Xmas is how people used to spell Christmas in the old days anyway, because X traditionally has played the role of Christ in a lot of writing forms. Because in Greek, the Greek word for Christ starts with an X, which is
00:03:15
Speaker
What letter is that of the Greek alphabet? A gi or something? At any rate, so it's not an X, you're not crossing out the name of Christ, you're simply abbreviating it. Yeah, you're using an older form of writing Christmas. And as we find with a lot of written forms of English in particular, people like to take shortcuts. Why write Christmas when you can write Christmas with an X?
00:03:39
Speaker
Anyway, so, I mean, you've probably... But also, you can't even say Merry Christmas anymore, apparently. Yes. Of course, obviously you can. Like I just did. And I don't even like Christmas. Because we had... They tried it one year. I'm sure one year one of our newspapers tried to drum up a bit of a bit of war on Christmas controversy and basically just got ignored because it's not really a thing over here. In the States, there's always something people find
00:04:06
Speaker
an excuse to get angry about. The whole Starbucks cups thing of a few years ago, wasn't they? Oh, yeah. Starbucks Christmas cups weren't sufficiently Christmasy for some people's tastes or something, and there's always you. Because some people do like to say happy holidays, just to be a bit more inclusive of those people who don't celebrate Christmas, which is a decent chunk of the world's population, I suppose. And then some people say, ah, but then so there, you see, you're trying to get rid of Christmas, just make it all generous. And remember, Josh, it's the reason for the season. It is, kind of.
00:04:35
Speaker
Well, no, actually. Well, I think it's all winter solstice, blah, blah, blah. It's actually not clear that the Christian Messiah Jesus Christ was born at this particular point in time of the year. And also the fact that depending on which form of Christianity you belong to,
00:04:53
Speaker
Christmas either occurs in early December or the middle of January. So December 25th is a tradition in the Western Church and only part of the Western Church. And it turns out once you start investigating the reason for the season thing, it all becomes very messy very quickly because it turns out what Christianity used to do and still does is co-opt other people's celebrations.
Renaming of German Christmas Markets
00:05:21
Speaker
But as for the war on Christmas,
00:05:23
Speaker
What do people point to as proof that this is how, why do people claim this is happening in the first place?
00:05:30
Speaker
Well, in part because they want to believe there's a large-scale liberal conspiracy out to get everyone. And liberals, of course, hate people with religious beliefs, so they won't go this heat in this case. Well, yes, precisely. And also, it's a very good way of providing a kind of demarcation between us and them, us, those who support the real tenants of our Christian civilization, and them, the people who want inclusivity and being polite to non-Christians.
00:06:00
Speaker
terrible state of affairs. So what's the business about Germany and Poinsettias? Does that come into it?
00:06:08
Speaker
So this was a, I did a casual search for the war on Christmas online to find out what evidence we could have for a war on Christmas this year. And the first article I found was from nota.co.nz. And this is about how the war started in Germany in early December over Pomsetia plants.
00:06:31
Speaker
Right, which is supposedly they're like Utakawa trees here in New Zealand. The Utakawa tree for people who don't live in New Zealand is a tree that has red flowers with bright red flowers. But it blooms bright red this time of year and so has sort of become the New Zealand Christmas tree. Although it's only found in the upper part of the North Island, I believe. So it's really only a local Auckland thing.
00:06:57
Speaker
But anyway, so Germany has an equivalent with the red poinsettia apparently, so why are people not allowed to glue them? Well, no, just them. Germans call them the Weihnachstern, or the Christmas star, and apparently Aldi, a supermarket chain found all over the EU, but particularly in Germany, has been advertising its poinsettias this year as winter stars.
00:07:26
Speaker
So they're trying to get rid of Christmas. So they're not Christmas trees, they're just winter trees. It's Winterville all over again. A thing which didn't know it did happen once 10 years ago in England. I think Winterville was what one
00:07:41
Speaker
area in England called the holiday period one time 10 or 50 years ago, and yet people still insist that it's coming back and people are trying to get rid of Christmas and turn it into something else. But anyways, okay, so that's a German equivalent I've
00:07:57
Speaker
And the thing was, there are a lot of complaints to Aldi at the time, and here's a representative of those complaints. The Christmas star has been a tradition here for generations. The management of Aldi has been subjugated by left-wingers and Muslims. You do get a bit of the anti-Muslim rhetoric. Specifically, we're not allowed to do this anymore, otherwise it might offend the Muslims. Speaking of racist relatives, as we often do around Christmas time,
00:08:24
Speaker
I have people who I haven't blocked on Facebook because it is probably the only time, only way I sort of get to keep in touch with them but I do see a lot of, you're not allowed to do this anymore because it might offend a Muslim and like oh that's not, it's not even a little bit, no I don't care just whatever, I'm gonna keep scrolling, keep scrolling, get on with my day but yes so this appears to be another symptom of that and apparently Germans are concerned that Christmas markets are being called winter markets or festivals of lights rather than Christmas markets but apparently that's not actually a new thing at all.
00:08:54
Speaker
No, so it turns out that yes, there's a whole class of German citizen who's very annoyed that the traditional Christmas markets, which are kind of operational around about now in most major German cities, are going through a process of being renamed as winter markets, or in some cases, Festival of Lights. Now this is once again, it's another example of left-wingers and Muslims trying to get rid of Christmas, except it actually turns out if you do the research,
00:09:24
Speaker
These markets have been in the process of being renamed now for the last 10 to 30 years. And they're being renamed for one particular reason. Tourists stopped going to Christmas markets, because people could buy their Christmas tat at home without having to go to Germany to get it. And so a lot of the market organizers went, oh, we've got to kind of
00:09:50
Speaker
make these markets more interesting to tourists to justify them coming out here to buy things over this particularly cold period of time. So we need to make the markets more than just about Christmas. We need to make them a more winter festival thing and we should have kind of
00:10:12
Speaker
light festivals or light shows or light sculptures. And we could call it something like a festival of lights to get those precious tourist dollars in. So no one's killing the Christmas markets. People are trying to get people to attend them by rebranding them.
Christmas Controversies in Australia
00:10:36
Speaker
Now, I see we have a story about from Australia this year, which is mirrors things we've seen in New Zealand as well. Not so much the idea that Christmas is under attack, not that it's trying to be canceled, but that it's trying to be mutated into some liberal, friendly, inclusive.
00:10:55
Speaker
So I see in Australia, some attention-seeking commentators claim that Christmas has been cancelled by inner-city lefties and the Two Woke Brigade supposedly
00:11:08
Speaker
A commentator claimed that on Twitter that it was child abuse for her four-year-old to see a woman dressed as a Santa. And we did have cases in New Zealand, I think last year at least, people complaining about having a Maori Santa in a Christmas parade. And again, it was a thing of the children. It was, you know, I've got nothing against the Maoris, but we can't have Santa dressing up as a Maori because the children will get confused because Santa's not Maori. And if they see a Maori man dressed as Santa, they won't know what to think.
00:11:35
Speaker
I don't think children are that stupid quite frankly. And I have children, they're pretty bloody stupid, but they're not that stupid. Now what's interesting, so a commentator from Sky News by the name of Prue McSwim was the person who claimed on Twitter that it was her child that saw a woman dressed as Santa at Maya in Bondi. Now Maya's a mall, Bondi is a place.
00:12:02
Speaker
As friend of the show, Pat Stokes, noted, Maya at Bondi did not have an official Santa this year, which either meant that Prue McSween lied about her child seeing Santa as a woman in the mall, or
00:12:21
Speaker
What they saw was a woman who was probably wearing a Santa hat and then somehow went, oh my God, that's the official Santa, as opposed to it's Christmas time, people wear Santa hats.
Neil Gorsuch's Remarks: Validation or Overreaction?
00:12:38
Speaker
Now, returning to America, I'm sure there's been a bunch of stuff we haven't seen. I can't follow the thread, to be perfectly honest. Salon.com had an article about Neil... Now, Salon.com's a very lefty outlet. They have an article about Neil Gorsuch.
00:12:53
Speaker
And the full title is Neil Gorsuch Appears to Validate War on Christmas Conspiracy During Fox and Friends Apparents. Right. Now, as a lefty outlet, I assume Ceylon doesn't believe there's a war on Christmas, so why would they be reporting that someone's validating that there is? What exactly happened? This is a very weird article, so they're going, look, Neil
00:13:16
Speaker
Gorix is like I think Gorsek as opposed to Gorix which is a Let's say wind in the willows character, but actually I meant to say dr. Vice Character that sounds like he could be a friend of the Lomax. Yes, Gorix and the Lomax. Oh that makes for a really interesting dr. Zeiss story Anyway, so yeah, so then so they are essentially against the idea. There is a war on Christmas and we're so you know
00:13:45
Speaker
He was on Fox and Friends and he very pointedly said Merry Christmas to one of the hosts. And the host said, oh, it's so good you're saying that. I mean, people often feel they can't. And salon.com is going, well, this is just him supporting the war on Christmas conspiracy, but it does seem more like
00:14:04
Speaker
He's a conservative who wished Merry Christmas to someone, and this is precisely the kind of thing that conservatives point out to prove there is a war on Christmas, when someone simply says Merry Christmas and a left-wing news agency then goes, oh my God!
00:14:22
Speaker
It does actually seem like this is a this is a legitimate grievance consumers would have here of just said Merry Christmas. I mean we're meant to be on the side that says you actually can say that and now we're on the side of saying oh but if you do say that then you're part of a vanguard attack on the liberal establishment. It seems very confusing.
Capitalism vs. Christmas Spirit
00:14:44
Speaker
Because I don't understand as well.
00:14:45
Speaker
However, what is interesting about this particular article is it does point out that the war on Christmas narrative goes back to Henry Ford and his anti-Semitic conspiracy theories. Well, yes, exactly. We've already seen blaming on the Muslims. They're the racist, the target of choice for racists these days, but used to be more and more like the anti-Semitism, but way back when. So you're not surprising to see them saying it's
00:15:11
Speaker
We can't have Christmas anymore because the Jews are trying to get rid of it instead of the Muslims or the lefties or hippies or what have you. And I see one other little angle on it. People, religious people claiming that the war on Christmas isn't by lefties trying to promote diversity and goodwill for all men.
00:15:32
Speaker
If you push this too far, the war on Christmas thing makes no sense at all. But no, it's capitalists trying to change Christmas into simply an orgy of naked capitalism. You must say, good caterpillar. An orgy of naked caterpillars.
00:15:52
Speaker
So frankly, I am willing to support that conspiracy. If we're going to turn Christmas into an orgy of naked catapulas, then I want to see the result of that conspiracy stat. Indeed. But yes, I mean, I don't think there can be any arguing that Christmas has certainly become much more of a capitalist thing than it has a religious thing, certainly in many circles. A conspiracy implies a concerted effort.
00:16:22
Speaker
I suppose there, so this was a religious blog that I was reading here and basically their complaint was, Christmas is all about giving and receiving.
00:16:33
Speaker
And capitalism has basically turned Christmas into a commercial endeavor of buy, buy, buy, commercialize, commercialize, commercialize. The consequence of which is people working in shops, working minimum wage jobs, having the worst time of all, when actually Christmas should be the point in time where we've been kind to those people, giving them bonuses and time off.
00:16:59
Speaker
And so their argument was, when either people talk about the war on Christmas, what they're trying to do is distract people away from how things should be at Christmas time by blaming the liberals and the lefties.
00:17:14
Speaker
for focusing on the wrong thing, which is looking after people and not focusing on the right thing, which is Jesus, Jesus and Jesus. And he's going, well, actually, no, actually, the liberals are right here. We should be looking after the people. That's what Jesus would do. Well, that does make a little more sense, I suppose.
Is the 'War on Christmas' Impactful?
00:17:35
Speaker
So there you have it. That's the war on Christmas. People are still talking about it.
00:17:38
Speaker
And yet Christmas keeps on happening, so if there is a war it's not a very successful one. It seems inevitable that we have a Christmas every year these days. I mean the old days we had Christmas, you know, whenever it was appropriate, but now every year, December 25th, we seem to be forced to have Christmas. Yeah, exactly.
The Joy of Christmas Crackers
00:17:56
Speaker
So I think that's all we have to talk about for this little bonus little Christmas cracker to pop in your faces and then pull out a hat and read a dad joke from it. No, Mum has bought Christmas crackers and it has pictures on the back of the box.
00:18:14
Speaker
as to the rubbish you're going to get from them. And it's just depressing case of every year we complain about the crackers. And this year it actually even shows you what's in them and you've still bought them and we're going to have to go through an entire thing complaining about something that you already knew was going to be bad. I think we've we actually got a pack of make your own Christmas crackers this kit thing. And so apparently as dad, it is my job to supply the dad jokes to write inside them. So I don't know, we'll see if that happens or not.
00:18:44
Speaker
They should do a kind of data-esque thing. Just cut up some jokes and then just cut them up into individual words and then randomly put them in. And they'll probably actually be funnier. Quite possibly. When they come out than when they went in.
Season's Greetings and Farewell
00:19:00
Speaker
Anyway, we'll let you get back to either preparing for Christmas or getting over Christmas, depending on when you happen to be listening to this. Once again, compliments of the season, whatever that season may mean to you.
00:19:14
Speaker
And we'll talk to you in the new year. You will indeed. So, la di vedere.
00:19:27
Speaker
You've been listening to the podcast's Guide to the Conspiracy, starring Josh Addison and Dr. M.R. Extended, which is written, researched, recorded and produced by Josh and Em. You can support the podcast by becoming a patron via its Podbean or Patreon campaigns. And if you need to get in contact with either Josh or Em, you can email them at podcastconspiracy at gmail.com or check their Twitter accounts, Mikey Fluids and Conspiracism.
00:20:29
Speaker
And remember, the truth is out there, but not quite where you think you left it.