Tuesday, December 15, 2009

On Happy Holidays

I'd fins the concept of a "War on Christmas" absolutely hilarious if it didn't empower stupid people and, frankly, certain high-profile people with whom I strongly disagree on most matters.

The arguments are old:
  1. December contains several holidays for Americans including Kwanzaa, a holiday made exclusively for African-Americans in the early twentieth century and rarely celebrated outside the States. And as a lapsed half-Jew, I can assure you that Chanukkah was never intended to be a big holiday. It's more like Easter, which incidentally should really be more important than Christmas since it's when Jesus rose from the fucking grave, not got splatted out his mother's extra-tight verjay.
  2. Separation of Church and State means one religion cannot be promoted over an other, and should ideally be excluded from practical governmental operation.
  3. "Holiday" comes from the Old English haligdæg, meaning literally "holy day," just in case the camouflaged i/y sound fooled you but linguistic etymology makes sense.
  4. Jesus was born at like the end of April and the celebration of this birth was moved by truthfully agnostic Roman imperials to coincide with the old holiday of Saturnalia and usurp its Pagan popularity.

To be honest, I'm tired of fighting the War Against The War On Christmas, so I'll just start making a new point:

People who think there is actually any type of antagonism to the well being of Christmas are the same people who think that gay marriage somehow affects the relationships of unrelated straight people miles away. Christmas is in fine shape. It is by far the most popular December holiday, even amongst non-Christians. Its traditional values are actually somber and reflective and quite frankly so not-fun that the only people who have it right are the Amish, and they don't celebrate anything at all. The Japanese don't even really involve Jesus, because the spirit of love and giving is enough to sustain an entire holiday on it's own.

More to the point, Christmas begins the momen
t Thanksgiving does. It's not even afterwards, anymore. We eat Thanksgiving dinner in anticipation of being able to start Christmas immediately after. We watch Santas parade down Main Street in the Macy's Day Consumerism Parade. We completely ignore everything else in our lives to wake up at the ass crack of dawn and buy the fuck out of clothing and high-end electronics for somebody and start The Holiday Spirit right then and there.

I went to Walmart on December 10th and there was a person and an old shopping cart in the closest parking space, which was pretty damned far away. Even though it wasn't hers, this woman moved the cart so I could get into the space. As I got out of the car I thanked her for being so courteous, and her response was, "Oh, it's nothing … it is Christmas."

No, no it wasn't, but God bless that kind of attitude around this time o-

Hold on.

This woman was actually implying she wouldn't move a fucking shopping cart that was also in her own way unless it was Christmas time? If only she herself were inconvenienced she would have walked around this regardless of whether it was a problem for someone else? What a fucking bitch.


So no. No I do not believe there is a war on Christmas. I believe their is a consumer-driven conspiracy to lengthen Christmas as long as possible. Despite every complaint I hear about stores putting Christmas decorations out earlier
and earlier, before Halloween now, I don't see any of you baby Jesus humping dollar sign moo cows putting your wallets back in your pockets.

There is no war on Christmas. Christmas spreads farther and wider than any holiday, infecting everything it touches with non-denominational joy and good will, making every asshole in existence a nicer, decent human being if only for a month or so. Christmas will not fade or be glossed over.

After all, you will never hear children singing "It's be-ginning to look a lot like Easter."















Also, there's no sexy angle associated with Easter, save Muscly Bondage Jesus.

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