FROM OUR INBOX
birthday – we’d have to throw Ugly Christmas Polo Shirt parties, drink spiked lemonade instead of mulled wine, and swap chestnuts around the fireplace for a barbecue at the pool. You might be on to something here, James... P.J. O’Rourke comment: James, December 25th being the conventional date for the nativity reminds me of something my daughter said when she turned three. My wife and I wished her “Happy Birthday” and she responded – as a three-year-old will – with “Why?” We said, “Because this is the day you were born on.” She said, with great surprise, “I was born on my birthday !?” Have a blessed Christmas and survive 2019 with all the nuts. – Lawrence J. Steven Longenecker comment: Thanks Lawrence, you too! We hope every American Consequences reader has a fantastic holiday season. Merry Christmas, Happy Hanukah, winter festivus, seasons greetings, and all the rest. Thus, it's anything of high-maintenance cost and low utility value. And that, alas, pretty much defines the Holiday Season for many of us bread-winners. But, gosh won’t the kids be surprised and delighted when they find Albino Jumbo under (or grazing on) the Christmas tree?! (Next year we promise our December issue theme will be “Golden Goose.”)
because they didn’t knowwho they were messing with. Yours cordially, Jeff K. P.J. O’Rourke comment: Jeff, I bow before your superior mastery of the sports metaphor! Re: Merry Christmas! (We Think) After more than 2,000 years in the religious business, why haven’t the infallible church and all the other Christian churches stopped propagating the lie that Jesus Christ (Yeshua) was born on December 25? This is blasphemy to God. That was when pagans were worshipping the sun god. – James M. Steven Longenecker comment: No idea, James. But for what it’s worth, the Roman Christian “merger and acquisition” of the Saturnalia winter solstice festival is probably one reason why it’s a dominant faith today. And think, if we celebrated in the summer – as some religious scholars pinpoint for Jesus’
You’re Probably Going to Ask Us About Our Cover...
Why is a gift we don’t know what to do with called a “White Elephant”? According to Brewer’s Dictionary of Phrase and Fable , compiled in 1870 by British scholar E. Cobham Brewer and still the definitive work on the subject, “The allusion is to
the story of a king of Siam who used to make a present of a white elephant to courtiers he wished to ruin.”
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December 2018
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