Michael Knowles REACTS To Anti-Christmas TikToks

Summary

The Michael Knowles Show

Episode: Michael Knowles REACTS To Anti-Christmas TikToks
Date: December 20, 2025
Host: The Daily Wire (Michael Knowles)

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Episode Overview

In this episode, Michael Knowles reacts to a series of anti-Christmas TikToks, unpacking critiques of Christmas from multiple angles—religious, cultural, and historical. He examines TikToks that denounce Christmas as materialistic, non-biblical, or even racist, and offers his responses rooted in Christian theology, church tradition, and a conservative cultural perspective. The mood is part humorous, part serious, and Knowles often teases out deeper societal trends behind the viral critiques.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Christmas Lovers vs. Christmas Haters

[00:45 – 01:43]

• The episode opens with a riff on people who are “too into Christmas,” contrasted with those who are strongly anti-Christmas.
• Quote (Bob, 01:04): "We need to get the Mariah Carey off the radio. We need to get a little O Come, O Come Emmanuel back into people's ears."
• The flip side: Christmas "haters," especially those found on TikTok, perplex Knowles and his team.

2. The "Do They Know It's Christmas?" Song Critique

[01:43 – 03:33]

• A TikTok claims the Band Aid charity single is racist and calls instead to "end neoliberal capitalism."
• The commentator criticizes "Western liberal charity" for being patronizing, pointing out that Christianity has existed in Africa since 50 A.D.
• Knowles responds:
  • He partially agrees with the critique about materialism but insists the deeper issue is the historical persecution of Christians in Africa, particularly by Muslims since the 7th century.
• Quote (Michael/“Bob”, 02:56): "Some people might not know it's Christmas because Christianity has been all but blotted out by Muslims there. And that is a much deeper struggle."

3. Racial Critiques of Christmas

[03:33 – 03:58]

• A TikToker tells his daughter they're not celebrating Christmas because "we don’t let white men inside this house," invoking the image of Santa as a white man.
• Knowles finds this approach arbitrary and unarguable, mocking it as "the tyranny of your will."
• Quote (Bob, 03:55): "Well, I can’t really argue with that, can I? I can’t argue with the tyranny of your will, I suppose."

4. Christmas as a "Pagan/Babylonian" Invention

[04:06 – 06:39]

• A commentator argues, based on Jeremiah 10, that decorating trees is a pagan practice and Christmas is not a biblical holiday.
• Knowles addresses the limitations of “sola scriptura” (Bible alone) interpretations, emphasizing 2,000 years of Church tradition and the authority of the Church to define doctrine.
• Quote (Bob, 06:06): "So one of the problems is when you try to interpret scripture totally outside the 2000 year tradition of the church... you end up with kind of crazy stuff."

5. Emotional Response: Why People Dislike Christmas

[07:59 – 09:17]

• A TikTok video empathizes with those who have bad Christmas memories, suggesting that's why they dislike the holiday.
• Knowles echoes the sentiment but insists that the meaning of Christmas is universal as it transcends personal experience—it's about Christ overcoming decay and death.
• Quote (Bob, 08:20): "Your love of Christmas should not come from yourself. It should not just be about yourself and how cozy you were... It has to be about Christ."

6. The “Racist” Origins of "Jingle Bells"

[09:17 – 10:56]

• A TikTok claims "Jingle Bells" was first performed in blackface and is thus "racist."
• Knowles pushes back, admitting the history of minstrelsy is problematic, but refutes that this taints the actual practice or current meaning of singing “Jingle Bells.”
• Quote (Bob, 10:09): "His contention is Jingle Bells is not really about Santa Claus. It’s really, really racist. All you would need to disprove that is just to look around and listen..."

7. The Real Christmas Narrative: Messiness vs. Perfection

[10:56 – 13:20]

• The next TikTok challenges the sanitized, commercial image of Christmas, pointing out the "messiness" and social outcasts in the Biblical nativity story.
• Knowles mostly agrees, affirming that the original Christmas was surprising, unconventional, and included “total weirdos,” but he emphasizes it was also divinely ordered—a perfect event in its imperfection.
• Quote (Bob, 12:36): "No one plans to have their kid in a cave in a manger. But it is perfect... it does subvert your expectations because God's plans are not fully known to us."

8. Closing and Reflection

[13:36 – End]

• The atmosphere lightens with an upbeat Christmas TikTok.
• Knowles closes by wishing listeners a "blessed Advent and a very merry Christmas.”

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• On Christmas materialism and deeper meaning:
  "Some people might not know it's Christmas because Christianity has been all but blotted out by Muslims there. And that is a much deeper struggle." (Michael/"Bob", 02:56)
• On scriptural interpretation:
  "One of the problems is when you try to interpret scripture totally outside the 2000 year tradition of the church which Christ established and followed by the line of his apostles, you end up with kind of crazy stuff." (Bob, 06:06)
• On the universality of Christmas despite sad memories:
  "Your love of Christmas should not come from yourself. It should not just be about yourself and how cozy you were and how good the hot cocoa was. It has to be about Christ." (Bob, 08:20)
• On the real Christmas story's 'messiness':
  "No one plans to have their kid in a cave in a manger. But it is perfect. It is ordered. There is worship that’s going on." (Bob, 12:36)

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Timestamps for Important Segments

• Christmas lovers vs. haters intro: [00:45 – 01:43]
• Critique of “Do They Know It’s Christmas?”: [01:43 – 03:33]
• Race and rejecting Santa: [03:33 – 03:58]
• “Christmas is a pagan festival” argument: [04:06 – 06:39]
• Emotional impact – Disliking Christmas: [07:59 – 09:17]
• The “racist origins” of “Jingle Bells”: [09:17 – 10:56]
• The true Nativity vs. sanitized images: [10:56 –13:20]
• Lighthearted close: [13:36 – end]

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Tone & Style

The episode maintains Michael Knowles’ signature blend of humor, sarcasm, and serious theological/cultural critique. There is an undercurrent of “common sense” conservatism, reassurance in tradition, and a call for deeper understanding of both Christian faith and the cultural position of Christmas.

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Summary Use:
This episode is a thoughtful but accessible guide for listeners confused or frustrated by the proliferation of anti-Christmas content online. Knowles demystifies and rebuts various critiques with reasoned arguments, historical context, and genuine empathy, all while keeping the mood lively and focused on the spiritual heart of the season.

Transcript

[Doug]

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[Bob]

Uh, Limu is that guy with the binoculars watching us?

[Doug]

Cut the camera. They see us.

[Michael]

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[Bob]

One of the biggest problems we deal with this time of year is the people who love Christmas too much.

[Religious Commentator 1]

Okay, people, tomorrow morning 10am Santa's coming.

[Bob]

In town and I know it's good to love Christmas at Christmas, but they love Christmas so much they erase Advent. Well, merry Christmas, happy holidays, just say it.

[Michael]

Okay? And we have to deal with them.

[Bob]

We need to get the Mariah Carey off the radio. We need to get a little O Come, O Come Emmanuel back into people's ears. There's another kind of problem, though, and that's the Christmas haters. Oh, brother, this guy stinks. How can there be a Christmas hater who hates Christmas? Christmas, I know you have to be so. Your soul has to be so perverse to hate Christmas. And yet there are such people and they are on tick tock.

[Religious Commentator 2]

Do they know it's Christmas is racist? It has such wonderful lines as well.

[Bob]

Tonight, thank God it's there instead of you.

[Religious Commentator 2]

And of course, Yes, Bob, there's been a Christian church in Africa since 50 A.D. i'm pretty sure they know it's f? Cking Christmas. Do they know it's Christmas is the worst of liberal charity. So this Christmas, why not ask Santa to give you the end of neoliberal capitalism?

[Michael]

La la la la la la la.

[Bob]

Okay, so you're focusing on that song. Do they know it's Christmas? And it's about these poor kids in Africa who, you know, I don't know, they don't have. They don't get a new iPad, so they don't know that it's Christmas. And yes, that's kind of cringe when you make Christmas just all about money and buying stuff. And okay, I agree with that critique of neoliberal capitalism, but that's the farthest my agreement goes. Because he makes a good point. He says, look, we've had Christianity on the African continent since 50 A.D. that's North Africa, which is very different from sub Saharan Africa. But then, yes, okay, then we get Christianity and sub Saharan Africa eventually too. The problem, though, in both of those places is then the Christian communities, which were overrun by violent Muslims starting in the seventh century, 1400 years ago, and still today severely persecutes those Christians, crucifies the church in Africa. And so that's a deeper version of the neoliberal. Do they know it's Christmas? Some people might not know it's Christmas because Christianity has been all but blotted out by Muslims there. And that is a much deeper struggle. Yeah, cool. All right. All right, buddy, pass the eggnog. Who invited Uncle Bob to Christmas this year? Next one.

[Daughter's Father]

I told my 13 year old daughter that we won't be doing Christmas this year. And she asked why, and I simply told her that we don't let white men inside this house. And she said she understood.

[Bob]

And Santa's a white man. Right. Though St. Nicholas was a little swarthy. It's St. Nicholas a Bari, isn't he? A little bit on the duskier side of skin color? Why are we not gonna have Christmas? Cause I don't love white men in this house.

[Religious Commentator 1]

Okay, right back at you.

[Bob]

Well, I can't really argue with that, can I? I can't argue with the tyranny of your will, I suppose. Okay, next one.

[Religious Commentator 1]

For one, cutteth a tree out of the forest. Okay, now we're getting somewhere. They cut a tree down. Go ahead. The work of the hands of the workmen with the axe. And what do they do with that tree? They deck it with silver and with gold. What holiday in 2025 do we take a tree, bring it into our house and put gold and silver ornaments on it? What holiday is that? Yeah, I know, it's shocking. That's Christmas. And Jeremiah wrote about Christmas years before Jesus ever touched the earth. Showing you Christmas is not the celebration of the birth of Jesus Christ. It's something that our oppressors has put in place to deceive us into believing their rendition of the gospel compared to what God says the gospel is. So we don't celebrate Christmas. It's not even a biblical holiday. Jeremiah told us way before Jesus was born not to do it.

[Bob]

What is the pillar and bulwark of the truth? I like, in a way, I'm kind of charmed by guys like this who they read the Bible and they focus in on one verse or two verses and they come up with their own kind of cockamamie theology that comes this is how all heresies begin, because heresy just means choosing. So you take one thing and you take a partial view of the truth and you construct a false religion out of it. What is the pillar and bulwark of the truth? And what this guy and many other people will say is the Bible, the Bible's the pillar and bulwark of the truth. But it's not. Because if the pillar and bulwark of the truth were the Bible, then I would go to the Bible and I would read, and I think it's first Peter 3:18, that the pillar and bulwark of the truth is the church. And the church teaches from Scripture, which is inerrant, and Scripture which does not contradict itself, even though sometimes it kind of seems like it does. And it actually establishes the canon of the Bible and the Scripture which says in second Thessalonians, for instance, St. Paul, to adhere to all that we have taught you, both by written word and by word of mouth, where do we figure out, where do we find the authority for how exactly we should interpret scripture, which could be interpreted any number of ways? Well, scripture tells us it's the church. So one of the problems is when you try to interpret scripture totally outside the 2000 year tradition of the church which Christ established and followed by the line of his apostles, you end up with kind of crazy stuff. Like you said, Christmas has nothing to do with Christ.

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[Empathetic Listener]

I'm always thrown off by the people that don't understand why some people don't like Christmas. And it's like, yeah, all those really nice, fun memories that you have that makes you like Christmas. Not everybody has those. Or maybe they have bad ones in place of your good ones. That's why they don't like it. It's not a hard concept.

[Bob]

I get it. I feel for him. But you know why I feel for him? Because I have some bad memories of Christmas, too. And you know why we're all going to have bad memories of Christmas? Because at some point your parents are going to die. And that's why people get sad around Christmas, is because you remember when you were a kid, you had all these relatives at Christmas and then slowly they died. Which is why your love of Christmas should not come from yourself. It should not just be about yourself and how cozy you were and how good the hot cocoa was. It has to be about Christ. Because the story of Christmas is that Christmas, the world is waiting for centuries, millennia waiting, in corruption, in decay, in death for this event, when God the Son, God himself enters into history and saves the whole world. And it is precisely because you have all these bad memories and bad experiences that is precisely why you should feel such joy at Christmas. Next one.

[Historian]

Dashing through the snow on a one horse open sleigh. Did you know the real Jingle Bells was not about bells? It was about slaves escaping? Did you know that the original Jingle Bells was named One Horse Open Sleigh, written by this over here, James Pierpoint? According to an academic paper, the Christmas carol Jingle Bells has racist origins. The song was first performed in blackface in a minstrel show in Boston in 1857. What is a minstrel show? Minstrel show is a popular form of entertainment in the 19th and 20th century, which shows artists performing in blackface. Like this over here. Jingle Bells in particular was a funny one, but you got to do all the slaves escaping. Jingle bells, jingle bells Jingle all the.

[Religious Commentator 1]

Way oh, what fun it is to ride in a one horse open sleigh wow.

[Bob]

Wow.

[Michael]

Thanks for that.

[Bob]

Education gets a little bit wrong there. Even down to minstrelsy. No one wants to defend minstrel shows, so I don't know Anyway, I'll defend minstrel shows. They weren't even. He says they were just white people dressing up like black people. And that's not even. That is not totally true because one of the most famous minstrel performers ever is Billy Kersanz, who is a black guy, very famous minstrel performer and writer. So his contention is Jingle Bells is not really about Santa Claus. It's really, really racist. All you would need to disprove that is just to look around and listen and see how Jingle Bells is sung. And it's about Santa Claus regardless. Like, okay, yeah, we can't have Jingle Bells anymore. Sure. Thank you. Thank you, man with a foreign accent. Thank you for telling. I'll be sure to take your advice under consideration. Next one.

[Religious Commentator 3]

We've totally whitewashed Christmas. We see Christmas cards that are full of glitter and perfectly happy families and little bouncing babies. And I just see that is not. That's not the picture the Bible paints. You've got a despotic tyrant who was obsessed with murdering all the children. You've got teenage pregnancy. You've got, quite frankly, shamanic astrologers. They're not these kind of wise old kings of Oriental. Then you've got the filthy shepherds who wouldn't even have been allowed in the temple to worship alongside everyone else. They were total outcasts of society. And then you look at the person of Jesus who was killed, conceived out of wedlock. I mean, that is extreme. He was born to a teenage mum. He was very likely born surrounded by filthy animals and certainly a ragtag bunch of total weirdos. That's the Jesus at the heart of the Christmas stories. We don't see that painted in our Christmas cards.

[Bob]

Yeah, I basically agree with that. It's not. She's trying to make the scene seem disordered. I think it's a bunch of weirdos, you know, and I think she's overstating it. It is true that he was surrounded by animals in a cave. You know, that's true. In a manger, which is symbolic and it's actually a pre figuring of the Eucharist because the manger is where the animals eat. But that's true. And it's true that the kings of the Orient obviously were wise and they were following the star, but they were also. Yeah, they were pro Zoroastrian. They were definitely a little out there. And it's true. Yeah, the despotic tyrant. And Yeah, I don't know. I think that's all basically pretty good. It's not a perfect picture of the elite of society. It's not a perfect picture of everything working out exactly as we would all plan it. No one plans to have their kid in a cave in a manger. But it is perfect. It is ordered. There is worship that's going on. The kings actually did come because a star. It's so well ordered that actually the very sky, the heavens cried out that Christ was being born in Bethlehem. So there is order to this. It's not like, you know, hey, man, like, all these guys with tattoos and crazy hair and, you know, like, septum piercings, they were all just doing whatever, man. It wasn't that. It was very, very precise. And it was perfect. Obviously, it's a perfect event, but it does subvert your expectations, and it subverts your expectations because God's plans are not fully known to us. And we need to listen. That's why we need to listen and we need to pay attention. So I agree 96% with what she said. Extra.

[TikTok Advertiser]

How dare we speak?

[Bob]

Merry Christmas.

[TikTok Advertiser]

How dare we?

[Doug]

Well, guess what? We're saying Merry Christmas again.

[Religious Commentator 3]

Christmas tree at the Christmas party.

[Bob]

Great. Is that my bonus? Is that my bonus video? That one's great. Could have gone so much worse. Could have gone. Can you. Oh, another. Yet another thing to be grateful for this Christmas season. Okay. A blessed Advent and a very merry Christmas. See you next time.