Love Actually

War on Christmas concentration camp

It's the big loooong weekend here in Spain, the equivalent of their Thanksgiving travelwise, and even though the season started a long time ago, it seems like Christmas is in the air. Company parties are out in full force and the streets are filled with holiday shoppers (if you're looking for the perfect give, try gifting my new book). The onslaught of the Christmas seasons also means that the annual wingefest has started up again as the false flags are raised everywhere in search of the mythical 'War on Christmas'. This week's Camino a Ítaca looks at how the queen of false flag warfare here in Spain launched the most recent attack on an nonexistent enemy. Click over to the originally published version in Spanish in the HOY or read the English translation below. (PDF en castellano abajo)

It’s something that in all of my wandering I can honestly say that I have never ever heard expressed by anyone, at least outside of Japan. It’s something so freakishly unlikely that I would sooner expect someone to say that they enjoyed chewing on broken glass or that they spent their leisure time getting unnecessary root canals done.

But profess to this?

True, the phrase might be heard in the context of someone referring to others, but certainly not themselves. Most likely when someone wants something but can’t get it that day or disparagingly regarding people they employ. But never have I heard someone regretfully utter the phrase, “I have too many holidays.”

There isn’t, nor has there ever been, a popular movement to reduce the number of holidays we have long fought for. It doesn’t take the ghost of Christmas past to remind us that holidays weren’t willingly offered to workers, but something fought for.

And it’s with these truisms in mind that I wonder, just where is this ‘War on Christmas’ that the far right fervently claims is underway? Exactly where are these barbarian hordes that are ripping down the millions upon millions of LED lights that illuminate each and every city, town and village from Malaga to La Coruña? Where are the general strikes and throngs of laborers demanding to be able to work on the 25^th? Just where are these leftwing lunatics who supposedly want to get rid of Christmas?

Yet even with a complete and total lack of evidence, every year we are subject to the same high-pitched whine coming from the right side of your screen. It grates on the ear like that of a squeaky door or, more accurately, a spoiled child who has something taken away from it. In their imaginary persecution, they throw themselves on their self-constructed pyres of immolation, rend their garments and claim that they are being attacked for their beliefs.

In a startingly candid admission of their long-entrenched privilege, those who once delightedly immolated heretics and used the pear of anguish on blasphemers whinge that less and less people use the word Christmas these days. Their lament is that they no longer control the narrative. They bewail that their creation myth is no longer rammed down the throats as fact to unsuspecting children in schools, even if nativity scenes are near ubiquitous throughout the country.

The divorcee mayor of Madrid, who happily supports the genocide happening to Muslims and Christians alike in Gaza, recently alleged that Christmas was being cancelled. Dressed in her American romcom Christmas sweater, she bemoaned things like the fact that scientists who have nothing to do with the Christian tradition are now using terms like BCE and CE, thus, as she sees it, depriving Christians their god given right to place their stamp on recorded history.

Much as the Romans surely grieved when their beloved Saturnalia was replaced by the anemic Christian celebration, complete with its festive imagery of a tortured man, relinquishing privilege is never easy. Opportunistic politicians like Ayuso will always try and create false flag polemics where none exist.

So, whatever you are celebrating as the solstice rolls around, enjoy your holidays and Merry Christmas.