{"id":10491,"date":"2011-12-22T09:05:34","date_gmt":"2011-12-22T14:05:34","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/news\/?p=10491"},"modified":"2011-12-22T09:56:18","modified_gmt":"2011-12-22T14:56:18","slug":"bureaucrat-announces-congressmen-cannot-write-merry-christmas-in-official-mail","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/2011\/12\/bureaucrat-announces-congressmen-cannot-write-merry-christmas-in-official-mail","title":{"rendered":"Bureaucrats decide Congressmen cannot write &#8220;Merry Christmas&#8221; in official mail"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Anonymous\u00a0federal rulemakers\u00a0this year decided\u00a0that members of the U.S. House of Representatives are not allowed to wish their constituents back home &#8220;Merry Christmas.&#8221;<\/p>\n<figure id=\"attachment_10514\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-10514\" style=\"width: 480px\" class=\"wp-caption alignleft\"><a href=\"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/news\/files\/2011\/12\/Hultgren-Xmas-Card.png\"><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-10514\" title=\"Hultgren-Xmas-Card\" src=\"https:\/\/wp-media.beliefnet.com\/sites\/140\/2011\/12\/Hultgren-Xmas-Card-e1324562606769.png\" alt=\"\" width=\"480\" height=\"741\" \/><\/a><figcaption id=\"caption-attachment-10514\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">A Congressman&#39;s card (sent at his own expense)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>Senators may. However,\u00a0members of the House\u00a0may only offer\u00a0holiday greetings\u00a0to voters. They must steer clear of anything\u00a0so politically incorrect as actually uttering the name of the federal holiday &#8212; which has been officially &#8220;Christmas&#8221; since 1870, when\u00a0the House and Senate\u00a0first gave the nation the day off to observe Christ&#8217;s birth.<\/p>\n<p>According to the\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/campaign2012.washingtonexaminer.com\/blogs\/beltway-confidential\/congressmen-cant-say-merry-christmas-mail\/261466\" target=\"_blank\"><em>Washington Examiner,<\/em> <\/a>the absurd ruling was made<\/p>\n<p><strong><a href=\"http:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/Inspiration\/Articles\/Home-Page-News-and-Views\/Bureaucrats-decide-Congressmen-cant-write-Merry-Christmas.aspx?p=2\" target=\"_blank\">Continued on page 2<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Anonymous\u00a0federal rulemakers\u00a0this year decided\u00a0that members of the U.S. House of Representatives are not allowed to wish their constituents back home &#8220;Merry Christmas.&#8221; Senators may. However,\u00a0members of the House\u00a0may only offer\u00a0holiday greetings\u00a0to voters. They must steer clear of anything\u00a0so politically incorrect as actually uttering the name of the federal holiday &#8212; which has been officially &#8220;Christmas&#8221;&hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":270,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"fbia_status":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[32,8],"tags":[1917,1918,1916],"class_list":["post-10491","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-christian","category-news","tag-congress","tag-franking-privileges","tag-merry-christmas"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v23.9 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Bureaucrats decide Congressmen cannot write &quot;Merry Christmas&quot; in official mail<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/2011\/12\/bureaucrat-announces-congressmen-cannot-write-merry-christmas-in-official-mail\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Bureaucrats decide Congressmen cannot write &quot;Merry Christmas&quot; in official mail\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Anonymous\u00a0federal rulemakers\u00a0this year decided\u00a0that members of the U.S. House of Representatives are not allowed to wish their constituents back home &#8220;Merry Christmas.&#8221; Senators may. However,\u00a0members of the House\u00a0may only offer\u00a0holiday greetings\u00a0to voters. They must steer clear of anything\u00a0so politically incorrect as actually uttering the name of the federal holiday &#8212; which has been officially &#8220;Christmas&#8221;&hellip;\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/2011\/12\/bureaucrat-announces-congressmen-cannot-write-merry-christmas-in-official-mail\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Beliefnet News\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2011-12-22T14:05:34+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2011-12-22T14:56:18+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/news\/files\/2011\/12\/Hultgren-Xmas-Card-e1324562606769.png\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"Bureaucrats decide Congressmen cannot write \"Merry Christmas\" in official mail","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/2011\/12\/bureaucrat-announces-congressmen-cannot-write-merry-christmas-in-official-mail","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"Bureaucrats decide Congressmen cannot write \"Merry Christmas\" in official mail","og_description":"Anonymous\u00a0federal rulemakers\u00a0this year decided\u00a0that members of the U.S. House of Representatives are not allowed to wish their constituents back home &#8220;Merry Christmas.&#8221; Senators may. However,\u00a0members of the House\u00a0may only offer\u00a0holiday greetings\u00a0to voters. They must steer clear of anything\u00a0so politically incorrect as actually uttering the name of the federal holiday &#8212; which has been officially &#8220;Christmas&#8221;&hellip;","og_url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/2011\/12\/bureaucrat-announces-congressmen-cannot-write-merry-christmas-in-official-mail","og_site_name":"Beliefnet News","article_published_time":"2011-12-22T14:05:34+00:00","article_modified_time":"2011-12-22T14:56:18+00:00","og_image":[{"url":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/news\/files\/2011\/12\/Hultgren-Xmas-Card-e1324562606769.png"}],"twitter_card":"summary_large_image","schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/2011\/12\/bureaucrat-announces-congressmen-cannot-write-merry-christmas-in-official-mail","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/2011\/12\/bureaucrat-announces-congressmen-cannot-write-merry-christmas-in-official-mail","name":"Bureaucrats decide Congressmen cannot write \"Merry Christmas\" in official mail","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/#website"},"primaryImageOfPage":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/2011\/12\/bureaucrat-announces-congressmen-cannot-write-merry-christmas-in-official-mail#primaryimage"},"image":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/2011\/12\/bureaucrat-announces-congressmen-cannot-write-merry-christmas-in-official-mail#primaryimage"},"thumbnailUrl":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/news\/files\/2011\/12\/Hultgren-Xmas-Card-e1324562606769.png","datePublished":"2011-12-22T14:05:34+00:00","dateModified":"2011-12-22T14:56:18+00:00","author":{"@id":""},"breadcrumb":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/2011\/12\/bureaucrat-announces-congressmen-cannot-write-merry-christmas-in-official-mail#breadcrumb"},"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"ReadAction","target":["https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/2011\/12\/bureaucrat-announces-congressmen-cannot-write-merry-christmas-in-official-mail"]}]},{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/2011\/12\/bureaucrat-announces-congressmen-cannot-write-merry-christmas-in-official-mail#primaryimage","url":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/news\/files\/2011\/12\/Hultgren-Xmas-Card-e1324562606769.png","contentUrl":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/news\/files\/2011\/12\/Hultgren-Xmas-Card-e1324562606769.png"},{"@type":"BreadcrumbList","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/2011\/12\/bureaucrat-announces-congressmen-cannot-write-merry-christmas-in-official-mail#breadcrumb","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"Bureaucrats decide Congressmen cannot write &#8220;Merry Christmas&#8221; in official mail"}]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/#website","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/","name":"Beliefnet News","description":"Top Religious News From Around the World","potentialAction":[{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/?s={search_term_string}"},"query-input":{"@type":"PropertyValueSpecification","valueRequired":true,"valueName":"search_term_string"}}],"inLanguage":"en-US"},{"@type":"Person","@id":"","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/author"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10491","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/270"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=10491"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10491\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":10517,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10491\/revisions\/10517"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=10491"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=10491"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=10491"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}