Seeing Red

Hello everyone! I hope your weeks have been more fantastic than the thought of a Kiss cover band comprised of corgis!

Speaking of corgis, just a quick reminder, 50% of the profits from any of my books sold in November or December will be going to help the efforts of the Sun Valley Animal Shelter. This is a no-kill shelter in the Phoenix area that connects animals with their forever homes.

So buy a book and help Mumford here find a good home (he is also up for adoption if anyone is interested)!

In other news the holidays have descended upon us, rather like a beluga whale dropped from a bomber airplane. Halloween day, I happened to go to the store and found myself in a veritable winter wonderland of Christmas decorations and festoonery. Again, let me repeat that, on Halloween.

I let out a sad sigh over the Christmas invasion of my favorite holiday and went on my way, vowing to basically ignore it, as I do every year, until the day after Thanksgiving.

Then the first "War on Christmas" posts started. You know what I mean, the fear-mongering, imaginary persecution of those who like to celebrate Christmas. First, let me say this, if you think that there is an actual "War on Christmas" please, as a Christian myself, let me remind you of a few things:

1. No one in this country will tell you that you can't celebrate Christmas in your own way. If you want to honor Jesus, that is your right. If you want to spend all day Christmas wearing underwear on your head and yelling, "I'm a blueberry muffin!" that is also your right. No one is telling you you can't celebrate Christmas. Someone else celebrating Christmas in their own way is not an immediate attack on your rights.

2. Every school/work/organizational break is still centered around the Christmas holiday. No other religious holiday gets this kind of special treatment (unless they happen to fall sometime near Christmas), so if we're in a "war" it appears we still have the high ground.

3. Having a Menorah next to the Christmas tree at the mall really is not something to get upset about. Remember, we stole the traditional Christmas tree from pagans, whereas the Menorah was something the Jewish people came up with on their own thousands of years ago. Respecting others' religions does not constitute an attack on your own.

4. Someone saying "Happy Holidays" to you is not a challenge to a fight. I say Happy Holidays. I say Merry Christmas. When appropriate I say Happy Hanukkah as well! If someone says Happy Holidays, the correct response is, "Thank you! You too!" Everyone just calm down!

5. The fact that you can't go a single place, starting October 31st now, without running into a million and one Christmas trees, ornaments and little nativity sets, would imply that Christmas seems to be doing just fine.

I bring all of this up because the first "Christmas Scandal" splashed in my news feed on Facebook this week, causing an intense urge to attempt to stick my head in the microwave.

Apparently, Starbucks has managed to do something more offensive than misspell even the most simple of names. Apparently this year their holiday themed cups are... red!!! Yup, you read correctly, instead of opting for an entire nativity scene (which, I might add has NEVER been a part of their cups), they went for a solid red cup with their typical green and white logo for accent.

This has sparked absolute outrage, particularly from one individual who posted an entire Youtube video and Twitter rant (which I refuse to link here because he doesn't need any more attention).

Apparently by removing the snowflakes from their cups that they had last year, which I was unaware was a part of the Christmas cannon to begin with, Starbucks somehow managed to remove all of the Christmas-ness from their cups!

At first I thought it was a massive joke, but then I started seeing calls to boycott Starbucks. I'm sorry, if you're going to boycott Starbucks it should be because it doesn't matter which one you go to, they over-roast their coffee, not because they made a simple design change to a coffee cup.

And Christians, come on! We are better than this! This is petty at its best, and completely alienating at its worst! It's really hard to convince people that I have logical reasons for believing in my faith when I have people running around screaming that Starbucks is waging a War on Christmas because of a minimalist cup design!

Might I also point out that Starbucks, despite their obvious love for Satan with their all-red cup, still sells advent calendars, CD's with songs about Jesus' birth (although, does anyone still buy CD's?) and several Christmas Ornaments that... now be prepared to be shocked, say, "Merry Christmas" on them.

So before we blow up over perceived slights, can we as a community of Christians do something Christ-like and maybe not freak out over nothing? Can we stop painting ourselves as intolerant, insecure people who will overreact to any perceived slight?

We have two months left of this holiday spirit to go people, we can do it! Well, at least, I hope we can do it.

For those of you not putting me on your "naughty" list, you can always find me on Facebook and Twitter (@AllisonHawn) and you can find my books here.

Also this:

 I have imbibed in the red-cup devil's brew. Guess I need to go change my major now to Christmas Grinchery with a minor in Satanism.