Christmas Conservatism

Christmas, as it is popularly understood, is a deeply conservative holiday. It is literally about the birth of the Christian saviour, and there is a declared war against it by woke liberals who wish nothing more than to acknowledge a world outside of baby Jesus and His manger. It is a holiday deeply embedded with tradition, symbolism, and in-group community – big conservative values! For those who know me or have read this blog for any length of time, you’ll know me as an anarchistic atheist who disdains power and hierarchy, whether religious or secular. You would assume that someone with such radical beliefs would be antagonistic toward Christmas and all its consumerist, nativist ideology.

It was a revelatory moment when I realized that I was a Christmas conservative. Obviously not in the mainstream sense with either of those two phenomena, given the birth of Christ holds no meaning in my life nor do I believe churches ought to be exempt from taxation. I just like to celebrate the way that I’ve always celebrated. Big family affair, some gifts, a real tree, Christmas Eve on Sesame Street, and an immutable canon of movies and songs.

Elf on a Shelf became a thing much later in my life, so I think it’s tacky and creates additional lies that must be maintained on top of an already dubious holiday tradition of Santa Claus and the north pole. They keep making Christmas movies, some of them even fairly well-done, but as much as they might involve the saving of Christmas from a variety of yuletide threats, they will never be truly Christmas to me. People literally mark the beginning of the holiday season with the emergence of Mariah Carey’s All I Want for Christmas is You, rising from the rotting leaves of fall to usher in the season of unending retail insanity. I do not consider it a Christmas classic since it did not come out early enough in my life for me to have had it embedded in the core of my Christmas spirit. I’m not so much a Grinch about Christmas as I am a stodgy, old curmudgeon, set in my ways, whinging about the kids these days who know nothing about what Christmas is truly about – how I personally have celebrated it since I was a kid!

I see value in the way that I celebrate Christmas. It’s important to me, and I wouldn’t want to have to change my ways because I see this holiday as sacred, in my own secular way. My community is small and familial, but meaningful. I have my traditions, my important symbols, and my cherished values deeply entwined with this holiday. I’m hopeful to be able to pass down my traditions to my currently hypothetical children. As much as anyone can be a conservative, I am with Christmas.

When I realized that I was a Christmas conservative, it formed within me a hitherto unknown empathy for the right-wing. It’s nice to have nice things. Change isn’t an inherent good. Progress is nuanced, and blasphemy can truly sting in the yearly attacks of a 90s pop-diva. Maybe the values of typical conservatives don’t come from what they abhor; maybe the values of typical conservatives, perhaps, mean a little bit more…

I think the biggest difference in a Christmas conservative like myself and a traditional conservative is that modern Christmas is very clearly diluted in its practice and has been embraced by secularism rather broadly. People get upset when stores have “Happy Holidays” in the window, but they’re not putting it up during Ramadan, are they? Much in the same way that everyone acknowledges that this is the year 2025, we celebrate a Christian holiday without too much fretting over the minute details of its religiosity. It is patently obvious to me that my puritanical Christmas beliefs come from my individual upbringing, but less so to regular conservatives that their own values come from the same place. There are as many Christianities as there are Christians; it’s just that no one acknowledges that, so it’s easier to want to impose a false doctrinal unity on everyone else.

I don’t care if you listen to Mariah Carey, during Christmastime or otherwise. You can sneakily move your elf from shelf to shelf, and I’ll keep my opinions about it to myself. We can still be friends if you don’t like Home Alone, though I won’t necessarily trust the movie recommendations you might make in the future. The need to impose is where I break from the broader conservative movement. Other people don’t need to adhere to my lifestyle; that would be silly. Much in the same way a man kissing another man doesn’t infringe on my ability to kiss a woman, nor does someone born a man identifying as a woman impinge on my own lifelong masculinity, I don’t carry the fear and insecurity inherent in typical political conservatism that needs a mono-culture in order to feel safe in their practices. I can only empathize to a point.

So this holiday season, celebrate however you like – or don’t at all! I am neither your real nor your hypothetical father!

Merry Christmas, ya filthy animals!