If you’re anything like us, you read Julia Ioffe’s anti-“Merry Christmas” tweets and thought to yourself, “If only someone would give her even more real estate to crap on people who are just trying to be nice.
Well, lucky for us, the Washington Post blessed us all with this gift:
As you may have heard, I have some thoughts about the ubiquitous “merry Christmas” greeting so I wrote something about it. (Spoiler alert: I’m not angry, lonely, or bitter. Just not a Christian.) https://t.co/l3EioApMKp
— Julia Ioffe (@juliaioffe) December 21, 2018
Ioffe writes:
Christmas is a lovely holiday, but it is definitely not a secular one. It is a celebration of Christ, as its very name implies. As a Jewish person, I have zero problems with your celebrating the birth of a person you believe is God’s only son, who grew up to die for your sins. I don’t share your faith, but I don’t begrudge you the joy of your celebration. In fact, I often participate, as I will this year when I bring Christmas presents wrapped in Christmas paper to a Christmas dinner with my friends and their sweet children. There’s no problem here: We know, respect and celebrate each other’s differences.
Except she clearly has problems with people celebrating. Her entire column consists of a series of complaints about how awful it is to be surrounded by people who are enjoying this time of year.
To say it’s off-putting to be wished a merry holiday you don’t celebrate — like someone randomly wishing you a happy birthday when the actual date is months away — is not to say you hate Christmas. It is simply to say that, to me, Julia Ioffe, it is alienating and weird, even though I know that is not intended. I respond: “Thanks. You, too.” But that feels alienating and weird, too, because now I’m pretending to celebrate Christmas. It feels like I’ve verbally tripped, as when I reply “You, too!” to the airport employee wishing me a good flight. There’s nothing evil or mean-spirited about any of it; it’s just ill-fitting and uncomfortable. And that’s when it happens once. When it happens several times a day for a month, and is amplified by the audiovisual Christmas blanketing, it’s exhausting and isolating. It makes me feel like a stranger in my own land.
Which land is that, Julia? The land of bitter killjoys who have nothing better to do than paint themselves as victims of other people’s kindness?
still doing this huh https://t.co/IFj4VjYZ24 pic.twitter.com/G4yk4LIufa
— Allahpundit (@allahpundit) December 21, 2018
Wash Post read Ioffe’s Christmas tweets and thought “Yes this is an opinion worth publishing.” https://t.co/YND27yIHEN
— Stephen Miller (@redsteeze) December 21, 2018
Christmas dies in darkness
— David Williamson (@StolenMonkey86) December 21, 2018
High-fives all around.
"Twas five nights before Christmas, and my Lyft driver was the umpteenth person to wish me a “Merry Christmas” that day. He probably just meant it the way most people do, as a kind of December shorthand for 'have a good day.'"
BUT WHAT IF HE DIDN'T? pic.twitter.com/QGDEt3w8Ye
— Five Card Charlie (@KC_Rounder) December 21, 2018
Oh ffs.
— name cannot be blank (@breakfastislife) December 21, 2018
Lots of us aren't Christians. But we are still able to understand that when people say Merry Christmas they aren't insulting us.
— wait, what?!?! (@burkhartlaw97) December 21, 2018
I will never complain about Maggie Haberman's obsessive desire to re-litigate a bad tweet ever again. This is now parody.
— Holiday Harley Peyton (@HarleyPeyton) December 21, 2018
Let it go already!
— James Smith (@jymbo916) December 21, 2018
Put a stocking in it, Julia. And then maybe give this a read:
another way a Jew looks at Merry Christmas can be found here: https://t.co/qu4znzR8XA
— John Podhoretz (@jpodhoretz) December 21, 2018
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Related:
‘Amen!’ Actress Jane Lynch has some simple advice for human coal lump Julia Ioffe [pic]
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