The world – especially the state (government) and its parasites – see families as part of the old world, the problems that must be overcome. Family holidays are therefore something to get shut of. Religious holidays are even worse. Especially if they cannot be co-opted by the state.

Chanukah presents serious problems for the elite. It demonstrated that a love of God and of the liberty which is His gift to all men, could defeat human rulers and evil. Their love of God was demonstrated by obedience to Him who is the Author of Liberty. Further, the Festival of lights prefigured the coming of Messiah, telling the Hebrews that their Lord had not forsaken them despite the best efforts of evil men. The victory of those despised believers in an invisible deity is a bitter reminder to human rulers. Man cannot prevail. Not even the elite can prevail against faith and the strength that comes from from the Most High.

Likewise, for Christmas, there is still a further problem. The coming of Messiah, the Savior of the world, was greeted with little joy by the powers that were. The fact that this anointed One was not just anointed by the Creator but was Himself the Creator, proclaimed as King, Judge, and Lawmaker (Isaiah) makes it worse. He was exactly what the rulers of the world, from Jerusalem and Antioch to Rome itself, claimed falsely to be. Worse, He taught and lived a Gospel that they could not compete with and could not destroy, which gave what they could only pretend to.

Still worse, through the hand of the Lord of all, the attempts to kill Him (and make Him of no account and deny any power and influence of the long-awaited Savior) all failed. Even when they were certain that they had won. From Herod’s murderous police-state antics in Bethlehem to the bogus trials, torture, and execution as a joint venture between otherwise hated enemies, their efforts were were proved useless.

It did not mean that all attempts at tyranny were defeated. History since 165 BC and 4 BC/30 AD has been a constant battle against the controllers, the parasites, the takers. But the same Lord Who defeated natural law and human evil in those long-ago confrontations has promised much, much more.

To quote the American Founding Fathers, 17 and a half centuries later, “Rebellion to tyrants is obedience to G-d.” Despite claims to the contrary, the Lord of creation is not some tyrant, some mean old man floating on a cloud demanding that we obey His every whim and striking us with lightning for disobeying Him. He is indeed the Author of Liberty, the giver of free will and source of freedom. Imperfect man cannot fully exercise and enjoy the freedom which is ours, in this life. But we can constantly strive to get closer to that ideal.

Is it any wonder that throughout history, evil men (especially rulers and government officials) have sought to denigrate and deny anything which might be a reminder of these great events, and therefore of the further promises the Cause of those victories has made. Which includes the total destruction and punishment of those who enslave and lord it over other humans.

Of the many celebrations of God’s love of His creations, Chanukah, Passover, Christmas, and Easter (as the religious world views them) best illustrate that love. It is appropriate that these same festivals celebrate His great gifts of liberty and freedom.

Until these annual commemorations are corrupted and degraded into commercial and patriotic events in which government, not the Creator, is worshiped. Until the events that these days honor are dismissed as myth and legend. Until they are contaminated by traditions of men based on false ideas and subject to the whims of rulers and the majority.

So it is no surprise that these festivals are more and more replaced by such holidays as New Year’s Eve and Day, May Day, and others. Or that the way more and more holidays are celebrated by drunkenness and perversions, used as excuses for mass marketing and conspicuous consumption. And more and more government and the Regressivists seek to ban more and more symbols in the public forum.

(Note: readers may be aware that I personally do not celebrate any of these as religious holidays, But I recognize the importance of these to many people, and the importance of the events in the history of human liberty. They are not commemorations required of followers of Christ Jesus, Rather, they have been superseded by partaking of communion on the first day of each week, a more frequent reminder of the sacrifice for our liberty made by our Creator, and His victory over death therefore the evil that besets us.)