Editor’s Note: This article has been edited to include Bob Bratina’s tweets from 2018 and previous months.
Liberal Member of Parliament (Ontario, Hamilton East—Stoney Creek) Bob Bratina received a lot more comments than likes and retweets for his Twitter post wishing his constituents a “great month of December!” instead of a “Merry Christmas!”
On Sunday Bratina tweeted a holiday-neutral, first-day-of-the-month greeting to people in his riding, “Wishing everyone in Hamilton East – Stoney Creek a great month of December!”
By the end of Monday, the tweet had 307 mostly negative, mocking comments compared to three retweets and 18 likes, a phenomenon called being ratioed (when a post gets overwhelmingly negative comments, meanwhile receiving far less positive engagement and shares).
Some Canadians on Twitter had fun lampooning Bratina’s politically correct festive cheer.
Others just wished Bob a “Merry Christmas!”
Interestingly, Bob has previously happily wished others a Happy Christmas in 2018.
Bratina also does actually send generic wishes of having a good month every month of the year, so those fired up may have jumped the shark.
The response online is not a surprise, though, as December tends to bring out the so-called War on Christmas, where politically correct politicians and other members of the chattering class become Grinches, attempting to excise Christmas from greetings and celebratory events in attempts to be “more inclusive.”
Last Friday a guest host on CTV’s talk show The Social suggested Canadians towns should change the name of Christmas or Santa Clause parades with “Winter” parades. A couple of weeks ago a US town erased Christmas from its festivities, changing the “Annual Tree Lighting” to “Frost Fest”.
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