Thursday, December 4, 2008

Putting things into perspective this holiday season

The holiday season is upon us. As a child the holiday season meant celebrating Thanksgiving and the next 4 weeks leading up to Christmas. It was a time for love and giving. A time to celebrate the birth of a savior. It was a season celebrated country wide with peace, laughter and good will. It was the norm to see streets lined with colorful lights and to hear the jingle of celebratory bells.

I must have led a sheltered life because I seemed to have missed something. Growing up, little did I know that around the world this season held a darker meaning where streets run red with blood and the sounds of anguished animals are the norm.

In America putting a Santa hat on a beluga whale is perceived as cruel yet the celebration of Eid-al-Adha is a time honored 'tradition' to the point of replacing Christmas at an elementary school in England. Will the streets of England run red with blood during this holiday season?

Sorry, folks, but the celebration of the butchering of animals in this gruesome fashion makes my blood run cold. Seeing little children running through blood soaked streets wielding knives is not the sort of celebration I want replacing Nativity pageants.

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