War On Christmas: Bo Sears Calls Out The San Jose Mercury News
11/29/2011
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[Previous Letter: A Washington State Reader Says We Need To Kick Gingrich With A Bigger Boot

From: Bo Sears [Email him]

I think this qualifies as an anti-Christmas piece in the San Jose Mercury News:

 Those Christmas classics that pay the bills, By Karen D'Souza, [Email her], November 27, 2011

It certainly places Christmas in the service of theater companies' budgetary needs.  It mocks Christmas customs by referring to crowd-pleasing entertainments as "cash cows" and "chestnuts."  It could be argued that some of these musicals and dramas themselves are already parts of a much earlier attack on the spiritual meaning of Christmas, but this article takes dead-eye aim at popular Christmas customs calling them "cuteness, kitsch and redemption."

The writer is a notorious anti-American, anti-white, and anti-Christian writer, and she doesn't deserve a kinder interpretation of her writing which is part of the concerted attempt to displace Christmas, including even popular kinds of events, from the American cultural landscape.  Toward the end of the piece, she abandons her pose as "more sophisticated than thou," and boosts "darker" Dickens interpretations, or a "sing-along Messiah," and argues that "A Christmas Carol" indicts capitalism run amok.

The San Jose Mercury News is profoundly committed to an anti-Christian society, regularly waving the flag of hostility over almost all aspects of Christmas.

See previous letters by Bo Sears,

James Fulford writes: I am sometimes tempted to believe that Mr. Sears is exaggerating this kind of thing, and I’d like to see some evidence that Ms. D’Souza is a “notorious anti-American, anti-white, and anti-Christian writer” (she’s the SJM’s theater critic) but then I saw her even more recent piece on a  Christmas play in which she writes the following lines

  • “Crumpet (Adam Magill), a put-upon fellow in a pointy hat and candy-cane striped tights, must traverse a gantlet of crass consumerism, cheap sentiment and family meltdowns all for a few pennies.
  • “City Lights, which has made a specialty of dishing up a little sarcasm for the holidays, revives this breezy 80-minute lampoon of yuletide yuckiness directed by Jeffrey Bracco. 'Tis the season for schadenfreude, people.”
  • “Our penniless hero turns desperation and a crappy holiday job into an epic adventure involving flirting with a toothsome fellow elf named Snowball, outwitting the dark forces trying to crush his spirit (such as racist parents who demand a white Santa) and discovering that there is still some genuine holiday cheer in the mecca of materialism that is Macy's Herald Square.”
  • “While the actor has a little trouble motivating Crumpet's change of heart, he lambastes the hypocrisy of the season with relish.”
  • “Suffice to say, this is one visit to "Santaland" where you don't want to bring along the tiny tots. But if you're in the mood for some savory cynicism to kick off the holidaze, Crumpet has got your back.” [Review: 'Santaland Diaries' at San Jose's City Lights, November 28, 2011,]

And a merry Christmas to you, too! Santaland Diaries, the David Sedaris play being revived deserves some kind of “War On Christmas” award of its own. First appearing on NPR in 1992, it’s become what NPR calls a “holiday” tradition.

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