I have an article inside, but like most writers, I prefer my original to the edited version. So, here is said original. Enjoy:
Merry Christmas.
You were just wished a Merry Christmas by an atheist.
This atheist LOVES Christmas. See a conflict? I do not. We atheists don't reject ALL of the bible. There are parts of the bible that I for one like quite a bit, like the part about going into the woods and choosing a tree to drag into your home and decorate in astrological symbols. Where in the bible is that again? Was that the gospel according to St. Nick?
My favorite Christmas tradition is when the rich folks go wild with the lights and decorations and then let us poor folks come look at their houses. My daughter saw a nativity on one of these viewings but baby Jesus hadn't been placed yet.
“Daddy, who are those two ladies and why is that nest empty?”
“Honey, thats Mary and Josephine and the nest is empty because its hard to find a white baby in the Middle East.”
I like celebrating with all of my friends and neighbors and since Sacramento is so wonderfully diverse that means celebrating all of the holidays, including a few we made up. Try Something New Day anyone? Diwalli is a great excuse to eat Indian food and watch some Bollywood. Ramadan is fun to celebrate. I skip the fasting all day part but I'm totally down for the nighttime food and visiting with family and friends. Hanukkah is when we sing along with Adam Sandler. Conspiracy theorists celebrate their new holiday, September 11th. I participate by watching a great documentary, like The Matrix.
Its now a holiday tradition to accuse us atheists and other non-Christians of trying to steal Christmas, you know, because we've forced the stores to say Happy Holidays instead of Merry Christmas, at gun point if memory serves. Too bad we weren't as effective in trying to get their red, white and blue "We love a good war" decor down during the rest of the year. I caught wind of the story on the evening news. Amazing whats considered newsworthy. There's a war on for Chrissakes, oops, sorry, already mentioned the war, guess I'm being redundant.
Say Merry Christmas if you'd like. Nobody's stopping you. If a store says Happy Holidays, thereby wishing Christians a Merry Christmas, Jews a Happy Hanukkah, Muslims a solemn Ramadan, beautiful idealists a Happy Kwanza, and Hindus a festive Diwali in the most efficient way, how on earth could you find a problem with this? I'm much more concerned with Halloween being called Harvest Festival! WTF? No. Keep Satan in Halloween! Stop the war on Samhain!
I amuse myself by seeing how satisfied many Christians are with my wishing them Yuletide greetings. If you don't get this, you may want to research Yule. Yule be surprised. (I celebrate Bad Pun Day everyday.)
Rest assured, I will not insist that stores put up "Happy cold, noisy, crappy music, consumer-hell season!" to earn my business. I'll just assume that this is one of the sentiments they intended to cover when they say, Happy Holidays.
Happy Holidays!
2 comments:
Merry Xmas, friend.
You are funny.
Thank you for this. Well said.
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