Christmas Sourpuss

I'm a Christmas sourpuss. I've yet to seek confirmation, but I may very well be afflicted with SAD (Seasonal Affected Disorder, or some such). Every year the tandem of Thanksgiving-Christmas-Valentines collude to put me in a low place. This year, I've tempered the effect somewhat by dramatically increasing my comsumption of alcohol and cigars. It's helped.

Christmas is the crawfish of holidays. It's too much work for not enough meat. My opinion of the season has been further jaundiced by this year's War on Christmas schtick from Fox News. It's allowed both political edges to get way too much play: the righteous right and the PC pissy-pants left. How about all of you shut the fuck up and chill. With that sentiment in mind, I encourage everyone to read Christopher Hitchens pantsing of Christmas. For those that don't, enjoy the passage below:

A revealing mark of [Christian enthusiasts] insecurity is their rage when public places are not annually given over to religious symbolism, and now, their fresh rage when palaces of private consumption do not follow suit. The Fox News campaign against Wal-Mart and other outlets—whose observance of the official feast-day is otherwise fanatical and punctilious to a degree, but a degree that falls short of unswerving orthodoxy—is one of the most sinister as well as one of the most laughable campaigns on record. If these dolts knew anything about the real Protestant tradition, they would know that it was exactly this paganism and corruption that led Oliver Cromwell—my own favorite Protestant fundamentalist—to ban the celebration of Christmas altogether.

No believer in the First Amendment could go that far. But there are millions of well-appointed buildings all across the United States, most of them tax-exempt and some of them receiving state subventions, where anyone can go at any time and celebrate miraculous births and pregnant virgins all day and all night if they so desire. These places are known as "churches," and they can also force passersby to look at the displays and billboards they erect and to give ear to the bells that they ring. In addition, they can count on numberless radio and TV stations to beam their stuff all through the ether. If this is not sufficient, then god damn them. God damn them everyone.