Barrett Rainey Second Thoughts

There are two ways to know for certain when Christmas is upon us:

Faux “News” begins its annual defense against the “War On Christmas” and the stores are filled with voices of dead people singing Christmas songs.
The Faux children got an early start this year in their defense of something against which there is no “war.” Just before Thanksgiving, Murdoch’s Misfit Munchkins were sounding the alarm with “breaking news” to match their breaking zits. Christians and faux Christians were being warned that “this time it’s real!”

Actually, this is the kind of “war” I most enjoy. A phony one. As we send out Christmas cards, put up the Christmas tree, hang the colorful Christmas lights, draft the Christmas guest list, set up the Christmas manger tableau, play the Christmas music on the stereo, shop for the Christmas turkey and attend multiple Christmas religious celebrations, I feel so – well – not under attack. We’ve had no ACLUers coming down the chimney. Night after night the neighborhood groups belt out the Christmas carols. Folks up and down the street can’t get within 10 feet without saying “Merry Christmas!” Stores around town have their “Christmas Sale” banners out and are running Christmas ads in our almost-daily, almost-newspaper.

Yet the Faux children and O’Reilly – that perpetual Ghost of All Things Past – are staffing the bunkers in their seasonal farce of the make-believe threats to what appears to be a normal Christmas here in the Oregon woods. Their ammunition is mostly gibberish interviews with weird people gesturing and babbling about threats to “take Christ out of Christmas.” But, like a lot of their endless other Faux skirmishes, they appear – to really thinking citizens – to be shooting blanks. Again.
I’ve checked a lot of other news sources – print – broadcast – I-net. All the “War on Christmas” references or links I can find go right back to Faux News.

Well, if it makes them feel better. Gets them through the stress of the holiday, as it were. Their irrational output on the dangers of Christians losing Christmas in a “war” that never was is less harmful to a lot of people than their other year-round Murdoch-directed mayhem.

Then there are those dead folks. Singing all those Christmas songs. Have you ever noticed? They’re all around now. Incidentally, I’m not a fan of what is called “piped” music. That’s the scratchy, tinny noise you get out of those little speakers in the ceilings of all the stores. I like music when I listen or dance. Good music. Professionally amplified. I don’t like music when I shop. Distracting.

What’s curious this time of year is that nearly all the singer are dead! Think about it. Perry Como – Bing Crosby – Rosemary Clooney – Mel Torme – Karen Carpenter – Eddy Arnold – Ella Fitzgerald – Nat Cole – Burl Ives – Gene Autry – Robert Goulet – Fred Astaire – Peggy Lee – The Andrews Sisters – Hoagy Carmichael – Johnny Mercer. Store after store. Once the thought gets in your head that all of them – all of ‘em – are dead, well, it sort of casts a pall over your shopping.

The reason is pretty simple. Imagine “Oh, Silent Night” sung by Hootie and the Blowfish – “Away In A Manger” by LL Cool J – “Oh, Little Town of Bethlehem” by Lady Gaga – “The Christmas Song” by anybody – ANYBODY – but Mel Torme. “Chestnuts Roasting On An Open Fire” by anyone else? No Sir!
Better we hear dead people singing the songs of Christmas than listening to those same songs of Christmas being killed by “singers” with voices that shouldn’t be allowed near a manger scene.

Yep. Like it or not, the season is upon us. Candy stripped bazookas and peppermint hand grenades flying out of the Faux “news” room in defense of something that isn’t happening in a “war” they’ve created for the simple- minded – and ratings. A crooner who’s been dead 40 years belting out “White Christmas” in a big box store.

You can’t get more sentimental about Christmas than that. What a country!