Happy Holidays! Unless You’re On The Left, No Soup For You!

When my family of four finished the Christmas Eve church service, I couldn’t help but think of the different ways leftists view the holidays. My family isn’t particularity religious, I’m playing the long game with them and sneaking it in. My husband and my twelve year daughter old go to church with me fairly often these days. We’re trying to make it a habit for her sake and we’ve found a church we enjoy but haven’t joined. My nineteen year old son is often working late Saturday nights, so we’ll let him sleep in most of the time.

I dropped the ball with him because I had him young as a single mom (I was 20 when I gave birth) and was preoccupied with school and work and making ends meet. I met my husband at 24 and married at 25. A Russian immigrant who’d been in the states since his teens, he’d joined the military after finishing college, he was full of drive and direction. One of those directions was definitely not towards church.

My husband was born behind the Iron Curtain in the Soviet Union, with coercive atheism. People who practiced religion did so in quiet. Like criticizing the government, no one should ever hear it or suspect you of doing it or you would be reported, fined, jailed, and sometimes “disappeared”

My husband is also a Special Forces soldier of 15 years with more combat tours behind him than I can count. I think this Spring will be his 12th trip, but with war as a constant across the world, I could have that number wrong in either direction. This is to say, he’s seen a few things. He’s been in enough harrowing situations that a general belief in God burrowed it’s way into his heart. I imagine explosions could send you in either direction if you were unsure, so I’m relieved by his journey.

I went to a private Christian school for middle and high school. My family wasn’t religious, but they wanted me to have a good education. When I was in ninth grade I started asking my mom to take me to church. I never joined my church, but I hardly ever missed a Sunday through high school. In college, not so much.

I visited a church here and there while attending college, but none of them felt right. I also didn’t see attendance as necessary. I took Old and New Testament classes in high school. I was one of those weirdos that read the Bible on my own occasionally. Then the Torah and the Quran, wanting to know how religions compared. My understanding of God and religion was something I explored on my own time.

Even as an adult I don’t see church attendance as a mandatory part of my faith in God, that’s not why we go. We attend church because there is a lesson is sitting and learning, for all of us, but especially our children. While my husband and I have found our paths as adults, our kids are still on their journeys. The world is a rough and confusing place, society will have you all confused. A source of moral and ethical guidelines is a must.

A church service gives me comfort and peace. I leave feeling lighter, and gripped by the remembrance of a lesson I’d forgotten over time or didn’t appreciate fully in the past. My husband, though he wouldn’t define himself as a “Christian” per se, enjoys the lessons of morality that span generations and seem even more relevant today than when they were written. If we didn’t have the kids we would probably still attend service from time to time, though we’d be more likely to watch the live stream from home, gathering the teachings without putting on pants.

But we attend in person as often as we can, because our children need to learn to sit in silence and patience. They need to hear a lesson they cannot pause for a snack break, experiencing it in real time and analyzing it in the car ride home with family. They need to commune with like-minded individuals who greet and welcome you, encouraging you to explore your faith with a smile and wave that lack judgement, so when Christmas comes around you can attend a service to remember what the holidays are all about.

I know there are religious people on the left, though I can’t say I understand the paradox of their convictions, but there are also a great number of atheists as well. I can’t help but wonder, as we think about what we are celebrating, and why, and how, what the heck the atheists are doing with themselves. And where are their true convictions?

Most holidays are under attack these days, for some reason or another. Thanksgiving, racist. Fourth of July, racist. Columbus Day, also racist. St. Patrick’s Day is fine. But what I don’t see, from these people who claim racial injustice or a simple lack of belief in the validity of the holiday, is complete conviction.

Why are they not insisting on working on these nationwide holidays? Don’t have a barbecue with your friends on the Fourth of July while simultaneously saying there’s nothing to celebrate. Don’t celebrate! Make a tofu sandwich and watch a few episodes of Girls while lamenting your discontent. Better yet, stand outside of your place of business and demand that they let you work on this day that you don’t recognize. Out buying Christmas presents? What for? What are you celebrating in this season of “iT’s NoT eVeN a ReAl HoLiDaY!”? Don’t say that Thanksgiving is demoralizing to indigenous peoples while enjoying your college break. Fight to go to class and eat a frozen pizza on that Thursday, or learn to shut the hell up.

Too many progressives and leftists are enjoying the plush life of a society built on Judeo-Christian values while knocking religion as a whole. You don’t have to be religious to acknowledge and appreciate that the moral guidelines of religion have helped shape and civilize our society. Moreover, if people can’t recognize that they benefit from the framework that was laid before them, I personally wish there was a way to prevent them from experiencing the privilege. Yeah, acknowledge your Western privilege.

So as we celebrate the holiday season, I wish you a Happy Hanukkah, a Merry Christmas, or whatever it is you celebrate. Even Scientologists and “witches”, light a candle for the mothership, enjoy your naked dancing in the forest. But if you don’t believe in anything, and want to cancel everything, I hope you don’t buy any presents, certainly don’t accept any gifts given to you, and eat some dry ass steak instead of a holiday meal. After all, you don’t believe in anything, so maintain your convictions. It’s just another day to you.