The other problem that turns up every holiday is public displays. This time a rabbi bitched at Sea-Tac airport authorities because they didn’t have any Jewish decorations up. As a result, Sea-Tac took down all their Christmas trees, and now he’s bitching about that.
I don’t blame the airport a bit. If they had put up a Jewish display, it would have only been a matter of time before someone else showed up with their own celebratory ideas and demanded equal treatment. Like the article suggests, it’s easier to take the stuff down.
But now they’re worried Jews will be perceived as anti-Christmas. Hey, don’t worry about it chief! This doesn’t make you anti-Christmas. It just makes you an asshole! You just wanted your holiday represented, and to hell what it meant for everyone else.
It’s a lose-lose situation for any public, government, or customer service entity. When I was in retail, we had to be careful to wish everyone a “happy holiday season” because there’s no way of telling what someone’s religion is. But even that would backfire on us: some customers ridiculed us for having to put it that way, while others gave us the “Jesus is the reason for the season!” lecture. Not a one of them stopped to think about whether we were Jews, Muslims, Hindus, or atheists ourselves. (Ah, ignorance… What a great way to spread holiday cheer!)
It’s still the policy at a lot of places, judging by the cashiers I’ve run into so far. Anymore I just say “you too.” I’m told it’s a lot more polite than “fuck you.”
It’s about this time that someone accuses me of being a Grinch or a Scrooge. I really don’t have a problem with that, because I can honestly say I’m the same prick 12 months out of the year.
They’re just faking it for a month.
on Dec 11th, 2006 at 8:31 pm
“because I can honestly say I’m the same prick 12 months out of the year”
I guess I hadn’t thought of it that way, I should also tell everyone that since I also am accused of Scroogedom.