Merry Holiday Period… or something like that
Having just mentioned the fact that I have barely posted anything besides a story I found very funny and a “yayz for Brian Michael Bendis” style review of the Ultimate Spider-Man comics since October, and having just read an epic rant by Mick Foley – a legend in his own right in the world of professional wrestling – I figured it was perhaps time for another rant of my own, and this one I’ve been ranting about a lot to actual people recently so I figured what the hell, I’ll rant to e-people as well. And it’s on the subject of Christmas…
Now Christmas is, with the possible exception of my birthday where I don’t need to buy presents in return, without doubt my most favourite time of the year. For me Christmas means good food, good drink, good presents, good company and good television, and it makes me feel like a little kid again when I’m ripping the wrapping paper off of presents that I don’t know about on Christmas morning wondering what could be inside. And yes, like the big kid I am I still, even now, make it a habit to find out what presents I’m getting before Christmas day. I know I’m a spoil sport but dammit, I hate waiting for stuff.
So what could I POSSIBLY have to rant about, right? Simple: the real meaning of Christmas, and why it’s apparently offensive. And no, I’m not talking about that wonderful story that some guy made up a thousand years ago about a “virgin” who got pregnant and blamed it on God. I’m talking about good will and spending time with your family. THAT is what Christmas is all about after all, so why is that offensive? The answer is simple: because people are stupid.
Yes, it’s true, people are dumb as *insert dirty word of your choice here*. See there are two types of people in the world. The first are the type of person who think to themselves that something is somewhat annoying or somewhat offensive to them but who realise that the person who came up with it didn’t do it on purpose and who just put it out of their mind. Then there’s the other type who bitch and whine about whatever it was who has offended them. Now normally I’m type one – hell I’m SO far in to that category that even the things I SHOULD be offended by I normally just brush off, but this time I’m making an exception. See for me there is no religious aspect to Christmas at all. To me Christmas is just a day off from work where you get to eat turkey, drink alcohol, play party games, watch TV and open presents. And as far as I’m concerned THAT is what Christmas is about.
I’m not a religious person in the slightest. I’m not saying that I DON’T believe that there MIGHT be something somewhere that fills in a few blanks, but I don’t believe that there’s this all powerful uber-entity called “God” (or “Jehovah”, and no not Jay-Z) who created the world in six days about 6,000 years ago and who apparently also created false carbon-dated artefacts all across the world to fool the unbelievers. Nor do I believe that this “God”, after a period of time, told a guy named Noah to build a really big ship and put some animals on there who he could flood the entire world, then impregnated a virgin with his child and then let the kid grow up and get killed by man just so that he could “die for our sins”. In fact I can think of about fifty FAIRYTALES that actually sound more logical than that story. For a start if we’re all the children of two people, Adam and Eve, then how the hell do you explain… well… EVERYTHING! But skipping that flaw, Noah had his wife and three sons on the boat, right? So assuming that THAT story is true, did the sons all sleep with their mother to repopulate the Earth or did Noah have some daughters and the sons all slept with them?
The whole thing is just beyond stupid. And the story of Jesus is equally stupid, but alas some people believe it and more power to you. If you’re reading this right now and thinking “yep, he’s going to hell” then please pray tonight for your God to strike me down in the street tomorrow, at least that way he’ll have done something productive with the last six thousand years of his time. The guy made the whole world and then just left us to rot when the first two humans betrayed him, only to come back about 2,000 years ago and impregnate a virgin for kicks? What a wonderful person he is…
Anyway… back to Christmas. I have an on-going joke at the moment that the REAL meaning of Christmas is to celebrate the birth of Santa Claus – which, by the way, holds as much merit as anybody else born on that day because even if Jesus DID exist the fact is that according to the stories he wouldn’t have been born on the 25th of December anyway – and was told by somebody a few weeks ago how wrong I was. I laughed it off of course, much as I laughed off the fact that there were people from the Churches in Canterbury standing in the streets shouting about Jesus. Honestly I walked straight past them, as did several THOUSAND other people, and wondered what the hell they were wasting their time for.
But at the end of the day, whatever I want to believe in, I still want to be able to say “Merry Christmas” to people, but apparently that’s not politically correct. It should, apparently, be “happy holidays” or “season’s greetings” so as not to offend anybody. Now I suppose if you were Jewish and people kept saying “Merry Christmas” to you it might annoy you, but you could simply say “Happy Hanukkah” back, couldn’t you? And I suppose if you’re a Muslim it might be annoying as well, but then you chose to live in a country that celebrates at this time of year so the solution really is to go somewhere that doesn’t, isn’t it? And considering you follow a religion that tells you to kill everybody who doesn’t believe the things that you believe then really I don’t care about appeasing you.
The real question is if a person who doesn’t believe in ANY of this, who doesn’t believe in Jesus, Moses, Muhammad, Buddha, Jehovah, Odin or The Easter Bunny, isn’t IN THE SLIGHTEST BIT offended when somebody says “Merry Christmas” or who has to walk past people trying to convert him to one religion or another on a regular basis, then why on earth should anybody else be offended? Why should it be “Happy Holidays” when technically that statement would cover any time of the year? Why should it be “Seasons Greetings”, which you can technically say on June 15th and it still be valid – after all summer is a season, right? Why should one thing be politically correct and another shouldn’t when, at the end of the day, Christmas ISN’T about the birth of some guy named Jesus but rather is about GOOD WILL, spending time with family and being a NICE person? Why must it be ruined by a few cry babies who don’t like the term “Christmas”?
That is all.