McCartney Times

KINGSTON – “So this is Christmas and what have you done,” is the opening line of John Lennon and Yoko Ono’s 1971 single Happy Xmas (War Is Over). While this song was the culmination of more than two years of peace activism, beginning with the 1969 bed-ins, the introductory line is really asking: “What have you done to promote peace?” Our response to this question posed by Lennon’s Christmas song will likely begin with an acknowledgement that the protests of the 1960s and 1970s successfully led to the end of the Vietnam War; unfortunately, this positive note will quickly shift to a lament, weeping over the fact that despite the efforts of peace activists, war and other forms of violence continue to occur today. This failure to end all wars, which includes an end to murders, racism, misogyny, hatred and all other forms of violence, begs the question, “So this is Christmas, what difference has it made?” Does the world not go on, as if Jesus the Christ, the Prince of Peace, had never come?

Source: So this is Christmas … | The Kingston Whig-Standard