Earlier this week, Mike of Geekpunk had posted about an NPR story written by some guy that was calling for the secularization of Christmas. Before listening to the story I worked myself up into a tizzy of hostility. I thought it was one of those stories you always hear the religious right complaining about (You know, they blabber crap like “The devil has a voice on this earth, and that voice is National Public Radio, blah blah blah, destroying our institutions, scream scream scream, everyone knows that the Founding fathers were Christians EVEN if the historical record shows that were in fact not, whine whine whine, ignore the Constitution, the actual America was founded by Puritans in Massachusetts, bitch bitch bitch, but now Massachusetts is evil ... we’re victims of secular cultural terrorism, cry cry cry, a hundred million American evangelicals can’t be wrong, mandate mandate mandate” story.)

As it turned out, that wasn’t what the story was about at all. It was actually by some whiny girlie sounding Christian liberal yammering on about the spirit of Christianity is exemplified by the resurrection, not by the birth, and calling on his fellow liberal Christians to enjoy Christmas for what it has become, a fun secular holiday, and to concentrate the brunt of their religious faith on Easter instead. *YAWN*

Seriously, how can I go on a tirade against this guy? It would feel like beating up a paraplegic school girl. He had emasculated himself enough already. I think he was trying to be clever, but in the end only sounded like a eunuch.

So, here I am with a perfectly good rant and no one to direct it towards. Well, that’s not entirely true. There are actually plenty of militant evangelical secularists out there. If there is one thing in this world that gets on my nerves more than any evangelical theology, it’s militant secularism. Show me someone who gets upset at the thought of their children being unnecessarily exposed to religion, and I’ll show you someone who has major issues with their parents. I come from just about as secular an environment as you can imagine.

When I was little, my parents didn’t make any bones about the fact that they didn’t believe in a God. Yet, the house was filled with religious imagery ESPECIALLY during the holidays. Every year my mother set up a ceramic nativity scene that she had made. Why? Because she liked ceramics. The Christmas was covered with all sorts of angels and crap. My parents believed that a Christmas tree should be as gaudy and tacky as humanly possible. What better way to do that than cover it with religious icons?

One year, my parents even gave my sister and me a children's Bible. They didn’t give it to us because they wanted us to exposed to the good word. They gave it to us because, well, because it was fucking Christmas and there really wasent a good reason to not give it to us. I loved that fucking book and would look at the pictures for hours. My favorite was of the Plague of Frogs from the Book of Exodus. I thought the Egyptians were SO LUCKY to have a Plague of Frogs! I would have killed to have a plague of frogs in my neighborhood. It’s a good thing there wasn’t a picture of the Plague of Boils (I feel your pain, Magicians. A couple of weeks ago I wouldn’t have been able to stand before Moses either).

Today, regardless of the holiday’s origins, Christmas is an amalgam of Paganism, Druidism, Judaism, and Christanyism. Imagery from all these faiths are mixed together. To try to remove the imagery of any one or more is just unnecessarily uptight, so get over yourselves.

Insincere hollow religious imagery is as much a part of Christmas to me as not being able to wake my father up on Christmas morning after he had left Santa a pitcher of yuletide dirty gin martinis. Should Santa have been driving his sleigh in that condition? Eh, that was the Seventies. It was a simpler time.

Actually, I don’t even know why I’m carrying on about this. I have no children. I avoid relatives with children like the plague. I hate the extra family obligations the holiday’s bring. I hate the extra work the holiday’s bring. I hate the fact that bars don’t open on Christmas until, like ten or so. I don’t mean to be all Schroogy, it’s just that Christmas is for children and families, which are two things that I honestly don’t want. I’m far too disphunional to EVER breed intentionally. And as I’m also far too much of a coward to EVER get a vasectomy, statistics show that birth control will probably fail me eventually. So, you never know.

Some day, perhaps under a shining star on a snowy night, a stranger may walk up to me and tap me on the shoulder with a court ordered subpoena demanding child support. And if that day ever comes (of course, after a suitable amount of legal wrangling, a DNA test, and perhaps me being found in contempt of court for standing up and screaming “I don’t care if that kid has a big Injun ham n’ cheese nose, his mother is a whore! She’s slept with everyone in town! He looks nothing like me! That not my kid!”), I may find myself sending a little Christmas check to a special someone. Of course, I’ll be sending that check out of fear of prison time, but I’ll also be sending that check out of a little thing I like to call love. And if I find myself sending that special Christmas check, I’ll also attach a card. And what will be on the cover of that card, you ask? There will be a manger scene in full regalia with a great big fucking baby Jesus smack dab in the center of it.

Why? Because that’s Christmas.

All hail the Christmas frogs and to all a good night.