History Will Long Remember the War on Christmas Truce of 2022

We almost had eight silent nights.

Following years of intermittent hostilities — annually flaring up in late November (sometimes earlier, prompting a separate dispute) only to ebb to a simmer after a tense month — in 2022, combatants, perhaps experiencing post-melodramatic stress on both sides, informally halted antagonism for one evening.

“Chestnuts Roasting on a Cease-Fire,” the newspapers reported. “A Great Myrrh-ical Happened Here.”

Some historians have posited that the quarrelling factions had long since tired of fighting the so-called “War on Christmas” — or, more accurately, debating whether there truly ever was any such thing. By 2022, few if any of the early crusaders still tilted at the secular windmills that loomed large and threatened to make the Yuletide bright for all. There were those who maintained that “Happy holidays” was blasphemous and that there was no good reason for “Season’s greetings.”

On the other side were those who insisted on putting the masses back into Christmases.

“A Great Myrrh-ical Happened Here.”

And yet despite — or perhaps because of — years of fighting, on December 18, 2022, at approximately 5:01 p.m. local time, all grew quiet along the Eastern Coast of the United States, though mainly in large cities — Boston, New York, Philadelphia, Atlanta, Miami. Erstwhile enemies lay down their rhetorical arms and extended hands in temporary twilight camaraderie. Pleasantries were exchanged, as were some presents and potato pancakes.

All was calm… but not for long.

“Happy Hanukka!” someone cheered.

“It’s Chanukah,” someone else stated.

“Pardon?”

“You’re not pronouncing the name of the holiday correctly. It begins with a more guttural sound, like… well, like in chag, chumetz, and chuppah.”

“Hag, hummus, and huppah?”

“Definitely not. You’ve got to vibrate your uvula — ”

“You’re being pedantic,” a third person chimed in. “It’s perfectly acceptable to pronounce Hebrew words using native phonemes. English doesn’t have the ch sound.”

“English might not have it,” the second person conceded, “but if you can make the sound, you should make the effort.”

“How do you pronounce the name of the capital of France?” the third person inquired.

“Paris.”

“Why not ‘Pa-ree’ — à la française?”

“Well… because — ”

“And how do you spell it?” a fourth peaceful person interrupted to ask. “The name of the holiday, I mean.”

“Cee, aitch — ” the first person began.

“Aitch,” the third person countered. “Just aitch.”

“Ay,” the first person continued, unpersuaded, “en — ”

“Or two ens,” the second person remarked.

“U, kay — ”

“Or two kays,” the fourth person suggested.

“Ay, aitch,” the first person concluded.

“Or no aitch,” a fifth person arrived and commented. “With four distinct variables to consider, there are no fewer than sixteen different ways to spell the Hebrew name of the Festival of Lights.”

“In English,” the first person clarified. “There’s only one way to spell it in Hebrew.”

“But this is ’Murica,” someone mentioned. “We use ’Murican letters here. And we pronounce things the ’Murican way…!”

Eventually, before things could get too heated, the crowds dispersed, half of them returning to their homes to watch Home Alone, the other half to watch Die Hard, none of them realizing that those are, essentially, the same movie.