So I'M DIGGING out from a storm that was more noise than snow. It'd be generous to say we got six inches, and after throwing blowing snow around in the wicked wind, I'm not feeling too generous. So I'm out there and the USPS mail truck pulls up to our mailbox. Wow, I'd thought he'd get the day off, it being the next working day after Christmas. Then I thought maybe he got Friday off, but I remember getting mail on the 24th. Then I remembered that USPS works on Saturday, so they got Christmas day off. But geez he's out there in this bitter weather, getting out of the truck a lot because there's packages to drop on doorsteps, and I know from the last Christmas card he gave us, he is quite a strong Christian.
So I call out to him...
"I'd a thought you'd have today off," I hollered.
"You'd think so wouldnt you," He sounded bitter and unappreciated. He'd chosen his words well though, and didn't explicitly agree with me or say anything disparaging about his employer while on the clock.
"Did you have Friday off?"
"Nope."
"well Merry Christmas and have a good New Year"
"Merry Christmas"
And that was that. He drove off to keep at it, delivering gifts and cards and advertisers to people who I guess couldnt wait until Tuesday to receive them. It was at that point I remembered his Christmas card from a couple years ago. I think it was a manger scene, and it definitely featured a passage from the Book of Matthew. I didnt find it off-putting at the time, but it did seem like a strong Catholic statement to me.
So I figure our mail carrier is a prime target for the purveyors of the "War on Christmas" script. It dawned on me this morning that the War on Christmas has a labor component that I hadn't even considered. As a teacher, I am used to getting nearly two weeks off in the last of the year.
I'd always thought of the War on Christmas as a straight cultural issue, a construction that taps into bigotry about non-Christian faiths. The War story also seemed to wrap the cross in the flag, insisting we were a Christian nation with cultural roots in white Europe. But here's where the Republicans or the Right or whoever it is that disseminates these discussion-changing narratives display such genius: they tap into these layered cultural resentments that have an economic component. But by amplifying the cultural issue, the scripters of outrage bury the potentially challenging economic issue.
I can now better understand the War on Christmas as a labor issue: The secularist War on Christmas is the reason I don't get any or much time off around the Holiday that I hold most dear. The wheels of commerce must keep rolling, so I can not have faith that my job will let me enjoy time with my family and faith.
At root is a nostalgic vision of an America where one income fed the family and everyone knew they had Christmas off, because the economy stopped to celebrate the birth of the Savior. It is a powerful vision and every little hyperventilating story about some parade somewhere changing its name to accommodate multiple faiths manipulates that vision.
The Republicans in the Senate recently tapped into the vision when they complained about bossman Harry Reid wanting to work them too close to Christmas, Harry Reid trying to transform the Senate into Pottersville. My those Republicans are strong on labor issues when it is the perks of THEIR jobs that are up for discussion!
So on the progressive side we tap into cultural resentment when we bring up the outrage of hedge fund CEO bonuses or somesuch, but we tend to discuss some specific political or economic issue, not some deep-seeded cultural issue that is multiple-dimensionally about everything and nothing at the same time. I think we approach the deep cultural stuff when we talk about the War on Labor, or the War on Overtime, or the War on the Weekend, but we don't seem to have the sheer brilliant knack to find that hot button and push it til it scorches. Or maybe we just can't stomach being that manipulative. Or maybe we lack the media infrastructure to broadcast our stories to every ear.
I'm reflecting that we ridicule the War on Christmas at our peril. The all-knowing snark can alienate. People want time off to celebrate the holidays that are meaningful to them. They see commerce trumping meaning in ways that progressives should be able to appecriate. I dont know it's complicated. But I feel like I understand the appeal of the War on Christmas story better today.
Oh yeah, and don't forget your mail carrier this holiday season!