Xmas...

I've been listening to christmas music at work all week now, and I'm done with my shopping for the season, and it's the day before Yule begins, and I'm all in the spirit of the holy-days, so it's probably time I got this explanation down and out.  And if the news media is to be believed (and they aren't), then consider this my volley in the fabled War on Christmas.

I am not a Christian, and so I don't celebrate Christmas, as in "The Mass of Jesus Christ."  I don't celebrate the birth of Jesus Christ anymore than I celebrate the birth of Siddhartha Buddha.  (Although I find it a truly beautiful story.  Honest-to-Sol, I am moved to tears every single year by the song "The Little Drummer Boy.")

But even though I am no longer a Christian, I was raised as an orthodox Christian, and so have a resonant familiarity with the customs, and am also not part of a competing Judeo-Christian culture; so, Christmas is certainly an option for me.

But, more importantly, I am an American.  And, as an American, I choose to celebrate the capitalist American Winter holiday of Xmas.

Like it or not (and I see no reason to not like it, unless you somehow have your ego wrapped up in making sure everybody holds the same religious beliefs that you do), the Christian holy day of Christmas has, over the generations of cultural domination by Christians, created another, entirely separate, and entirely secular holiday in this country, that has absolutely nothing to do with the birth of Jesus.  This holiday, that I refer to as "Xmas" just to differentiate between the two, is about Santa and Rudolph and Frosty the Snowman and Black Friday and strings of lights hanging everywhere and chopping down an evergreen and sticking it in your living room.  And I throw myself into this holiday whole-heartedly.  It is, hands-down, my absolute favorite time of the year.  I Love it.  And I wish we could all just accept that this holiday exists, and that it doesn't all have to be about Jesus, and thereby give all Americans the opportunity to enjoy it, regardless of their religion, or lack thereof.

And if you want to celebrate a traditional Christian Christmas, and make it all about the birth of baby Jesus, then please, by all means, go right ahead.  No one is stopping you.  But you need to accept that you gave this holiday away a long time ago, and that it doesn't belong solely to you anymore.  There is a world economy running off of this holiday now, and it has fuck-all to do with Jesus.  The engine of the capitalist world runs on the secular holiday of Xmas, and the sooner we all admit that, and accept it, and stop whining about it as though it were the greatest crime since the crucifixion, and as though we could do anything about it, the better off we'll all be.

Here endeth the rant.

Merry Xmas, everyone.