The War on Christmas is real

OK, so it's not. It's an invention of the Trump Propaganda Network, i.e. Fox "News," which has never turned down an opportunity to make up stuff if there was phony outrage to be exploited.

(Strangely, there actually was a War on Christmas once. According to the esteemed Charles Pierce, it was waged not by Barack Obama but by the Puritans, a rigidly conservative Christian sect who decried its celebration in the Massachusetts Bay Colony because it incorporated certain pagan elements. Not until 1856 did the commonwealth of Massachusetts officially declare Christmas a public holiday. Your history tidbit for today.)

Where was I again?

Oh, yeah. The War on Christmas.

Which the National Football League carried out (on Christmas Eve, no less) against poor Alvin Kamara, who only wanted to spread some seasonal joy. This is strictly forbidden in the NFL, whose notion of propriety has always been mindlessly rigid, and one of the reasons people (OK, me) find it a boring and generally easy-to-ignore entity.

This time it was Kamara, the sensational Saints' rookie, who got the NFL all harrumph-y. It seems he wore a pair of Christmas-themed cleats -- red with little bells, like Christmas stockings -- for the Saints game on Christmas Eve. This violated the NFL's policy against wearing something that isn't in your team colors. And so, rather than let it slide like anyone with a lick of sense would have, the No Fun League fined Kamara $6,000.

You keep Christmas in your way, and let me keep it in mine, said commissioner Roger Goodell, presumably.

(Actually, it was George C. Scott who said that, in the 1984 version of "A Christmas Carol." His nephew, Fred, protested "Keep it? But you don't keep it!" After which Scrooge replied "Let me leave it alone, then." Which sounds very Rog-like when you think about it.)

At any rate, like Scrooge's nephew, Kamara refused to let Uncle Rog sour his holiday spirit. Saying "yeah, (the cleats) were worth it," he's declared he's going to start up a GoFundMe page to collect donations to pay off the fine, and anything he raises beyond that will go to buy equipment for local youth sports teams.

Meanwhile, Rog declared that if he could work his will, "every idiot who goes about with 'Merry Christmas' on his lips would be boiled in his own pudding, and buried with a stake of holly through his heart!"

Oh, wait. That was George C. Scott, too.

So easy to get them confused.