Happy Holidays, Bitches!
Explicit content warning
12/14/20 • 46 min
We are discussing the war on Christmas! Or the lack of one...
Let's talk about why December is a little more secular, and a little more globalist, than you might realize.
In this episode, we cover many of the holidays that take place in December including Kwanzaa and Hanukkah. Because there are literally dozens of holidays happening this time of year, Happy Holidays are more appropriate and acknowledge religious and cultural diversity.
Did you know there are Christians that don't celebrate Christmas? While you may feel there is a "war on Christmas" against the Christian faith, there are subsets of Christianity that don't recognize the holiday.
An umbrella term like "Happy Holidays" welcomes people from all backgrounds and doesn't assume that all white people are Christians (like our resident atheist, Katie). It's not about not celebrating Christmas, it's about recognizing that people come from different walks of life.
Support us at Patreon and Spreadshirt
Join the Community on Discord
Learn more great religion facts on Facebook and Instagram
**
Preston Meyer 00:09
Happy holidays.
Katie Dooley 00:19
Or laughing already. So bad. And welcome to another episode of the holly watermelon Podcast. I'm Katie. I'm Preston. And today, this is our last episode of 2020.
Preston Meyer 00:32
Oh man, I hope the new year is something good.
Katie Dooley 00:34
And I'll just say right now we're going to take three, three weeks between episodes instead of two. But we will see you all in 2021. And hope it's better than 2020. But today, I think this is going to be our most controversial episode yet. six episodes in but
Preston Meyer 00:56
yeah, I mean, it's a low bar, but we're gonna, we're gonna either launch right over it or fall right into it.
Katie Dooley 01:04
So today, we're talking about Happy Holidays, versus Merry Christmas, or on Christmas. I, this isn't all going to be about the war on Christmas, but it's definitely part of our conversation today. And I think why Happy Holidays should be everyone's preferred term.
Preston Meyer 01:29
Honestly, I don't think it needs to be a preferred term. But if you're the person who shouts at other people for saying Happy Holidays, you're the bad guy.
Katie Dooley 01:39
Yeah. Um, so there's a few reasons. I think this and we're, I think we'll just dive right into though.
Preston Meyer 01:47
All right. So what else is going on in December?
Katie Dooley 01:50
I mean, there's a lot going on December, which is why I don't have which is why like, have holiday.
Preston Meyer 01:57
Nice and generic, nice
Katie Dooley 01:59
engineer. So we have a Buddhist holiday called Bodhi day. We have a Jewish holiday called Hanukkah,
Preston Meyer 02:07
which isn't always in December, but it is this year. Also.
Katie Dooley 02:11
Diwali this year was in November, but I think it can fall in December as well. That sounds right. Also, the the Muslim calendar changes every year. So it's kind of good. It doesn't fall this year. But you could definitely fall in December. We have Kwanzaa which is an African American. It's not a religious holiday particular but it does fall in December. We have Zorro Astron holiday called Zara thoughts. D so we have to Hindu holidays Danu sense grantee and Geeta J on TV.
Preston Meyer 02:51
I love listening to you say these things, but I know that I wouldn't pronounce them any better.
Katie Dooley 02:58
Yeah, please throw me sure comment with the phonetics farm, you
Preston Meyer 03:04
send us your homemade MP threes and, or
Katie Dooley 03:08
whatever. And then we also have other Christian or near Christian holidays. So we have you all we have St. Nicholas stay. Epiphany happens in January, but it's kind of related. So there's a lot going on. And there's actually a lot going on all year round. But this is what we call the holiday season. Because
Preston Meyer 03:27
gay white, Christian centric American culture. We focus on one thing, we have one bank holiday in December, and that's December 25. For the white Christians, because let's be real, nobody was thinking about bla...
We are discussing the war on Christmas! Or the lack of one...
Let's talk about why December is a little more secular, and a little more globalist, than you might realize.
In this episode, we cover many of the holidays that take place in December including Kwanzaa and Hanukkah. Because there are literally dozens of holidays happening this time of year, Happy Holidays are more appropriate and acknowledge religious and cultural diversity.
Did you know there are Christians that don't celebrate Christmas? While you may feel there is a "war on Christmas" against the Christian faith, there are subsets of Christianity that don't recognize the holiday.
An umbrella term like "Happy Holidays" welcomes people from all backgrounds and doesn't assume that all white people are Christians (like our resident atheist, Katie). It's not about not celebrating Christmas, it's about recognizing that people come from different walks of life.
Support us at Patreon and Spreadshirt
Join the Community on Discord
Learn more great religion facts on Facebook and Instagram
**
Preston Meyer 00:09
Happy holidays.
Katie Dooley 00:19
Or laughing already. So bad. And welcome to another episode of the holly watermelon Podcast. I'm Katie. I'm Preston. And today, this is our last episode of 2020.
Preston Meyer 00:32
Oh man, I hope the new year is something good.
Katie Dooley 00:34
And I'll just say right now we're going to take three, three weeks between episodes instead of two. But we will see you all in 2021. And hope it's better than 2020. But today, I think this is going to be our most controversial episode yet. six episodes in but
Preston Meyer 00:56
yeah, I mean, it's a low bar, but we're gonna, we're gonna either launch right over it or fall right into it.
Katie Dooley 01:04
So today, we're talking about Happy Holidays, versus Merry Christmas, or on Christmas. I, this isn't all going to be about the war on Christmas, but it's definitely part of our conversation today. And I think why Happy Holidays should be everyone's preferred term.
Preston Meyer 01:29
Honestly, I don't think it needs to be a preferred term. But if you're the person who shouts at other people for saying Happy Holidays, you're the bad guy.
Katie Dooley 01:39
Yeah. Um, so there's a few reasons. I think this and we're, I think we'll just dive right into though.
Preston Meyer 01:47
All right. So what else is going on in December?
Katie Dooley 01:50
I mean, there's a lot going on December, which is why I don't have which is why like, have holiday.
Preston Meyer 01:57
Nice and generic, nice
Katie Dooley 01:59
engineer. So we have a Buddhist holiday called Bodhi day. We have a Jewish holiday called Hanukkah,
Preston Meyer 02:07
which isn't always in December, but it is this year. Also.
Katie Dooley 02:11
Diwali this year was in November, but I think it can fall in December as well. That sounds right. Also, the the Muslim calendar changes every year. So it's kind of good. It doesn't fall this year. But you could definitely fall in December. We have Kwanzaa which is an African American. It's not a religious holiday particular but it does fall in December. We have Zorro Astron holiday called Zara thoughts. D so we have to Hindu holidays Danu sense grantee and Geeta J on TV.
Preston Meyer 02:51
I love listening to you say these things, but I know that I wouldn't pronounce them any better.
Katie Dooley 02:58
Yeah, please throw me sure comment with the phonetics farm, you
Preston Meyer 03:04
send us your homemade MP threes and, or
Katie Dooley 03:08
whatever. And then we also have other Christian or near Christian holidays. So we have you all we have St. Nicholas stay. Epiphany happens in January, but it's kind of related. So there's a lot going on. And there's actually a lot going on all year round. But this is what we call the holiday season. Because
Preston Meyer 03:27
gay white, Christian centric American culture. We focus on one thing, we have one bank holiday in December, and that's December 25. For the white Christians, because let's be real, nobody was thinking about bla...
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Learn more great religion facts on Facebook and Instagram
***
Katie Dooley 00:12
Hello, everyone,
Preston Meyer 00:13
and welcome to the holy watermelon od test.
Katie Dooley 00:16
My name is Katie Preston. And what are we talking about? We have a new series Happy New Year 21 Let's hope it's better for everyone, then 2020 We have a new series, I get series mini series started, guess
Preston Meyer 00:35
what we're doing, we're gonna take a dive, not a super deep dive, because there's an awful lot of depth to every religion, but we're going to take a reasonably deep dive into the biggest of the world religions. And then maybe we'll take a look at some of the smaller ones later, too. So we're gonna start with Judaism. Cool.
Katie Dooley 00:56
So tonight, yeah, today we're talking about today's because it's the first chronologically an Abrahamic religion. So it seems like a good place to start.
Preston Meyer 01:11
Yeah, it's like most religions, it's kind of tricky. It's not monolithic. There's not a pope who's in charge of all of the Jews, for example. But there's one unifying detail that they all adhere to some degree or another, to the Hebrew Bible, and the Jewish tradition of the good old Holy Land.
Katie Dooley 01:36
So let's start with how it started. Some of the I guess, I guess it starts with Exodus. And maybe you want to talk about this briefly, in brief the story of Exodus, and I don't know what you know about who wrote that story. Now,
Preston Meyer 01:56
I don't think anybody knows who wrote that story down. There's an awful lot of people who genuinely believe that Moses wrote, all five of the books ascribed to him in the old testament to the Hebrew Bible. But there's also a handful of clues in there that say that was written much later. That's not to say that Moses couldn't have written down some of it. But there's not a whole lot of evidence for that either. It's a large collection of books, the the Exodus, which is probably the second most read of the Five Books of Moses, because nobody reads Leviticus, or Deuteronomy, or numbers, the names are intimidating, and the content is incredibly dry. But Exodus is the exciting story of Moses, leading the Israelites out of Egypt. And of course, Genesis tells the story of how the nation the people of Israel came to be. So those two books get an awful lot of credit, and the other three are forgotten. And so the Exodus, the foundational story of who Israelites are, as a freed people, is hugely important to their identity. It's about Moses being born into slavery, and then being thrown into a river in a handy dandy boat so he doesn't drown and sink, which is super important. If you want a nation to survive.
Katie Dooley 03:26
You can buy it's Moses baskets for your kids that are called Moses pass. Of course. I don't know what convenience they are.
Preston Meyer 03:35
They'...
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