“Not even one?” he asked, incredulously.
I wasn’t certain why this would be a surprise. I mean, I’m Jon.
Admittedly I don’t sneak down into Whoville and steal their Roast Beast or anything like that, and I don’t think I’m exactly in need of a Christmas Eve visitation from ghosts who’ve come to show me the error of my ways, but even so, I’m not really big on the holiday cheer.
However, an inattentive bit of shopping led me to the inadvertent grabbing of something that now serves as the closest thing to a decoration you’re likely to see in my place:
Speaking of the holidays, Bill O’Reilly would have been upset if he’d been at the Wal-Mart I was at today as the greeter cheerfully told customers “Happy Holidays!” as they entered.
And here we thought the War on Christmas was finally over.
I honestly don’t understand why people make a big deal about this. I mean, apart from the whiny sense of entitlement that permeates our society, and tends to be strongest amongst white fundamentalist Christians.
I don’t understand why fundies have such a bug up their collective ass about any effort to encourage inclusiveness. The fact of the matter is that, like it or not, and I know that you don’t, we live in a pluralistic society, and some effort has to be made to promote unity.
Why is it so hard to recognize that there is, in fact, more than one holiday going on during this period? Hell, even for Christians there’s more than one, or doesn’t New Year’s Day count? Come on, throw a bone to laziness if nothing else. Someone might be saying “Happy Holidays” because it’s easier than saying “Merry Christmas and Happy New Year,” and not because they want to give aid and comfort to the enemies of Christmas.
What I find most ironic is that the move to de-emphasize Christmas was done in order to avoid offending non-Christians, which in turn offends Christians. It’s especially funny to watch some fundy pundit decrying the attempt at being sensitive to the feelings of others while demanding that others be sensitive to his feelings.
The thing is, I don’t think most non-Christians are all that offended by hearing people say “Merry Christmas.” In fact, the whole thing is pretty much just a manufactured talking point to give pundits something to bitch about (or declare moral victory over) once November rolls around.
(It also gives me something to bitch about as the holiday in question approaches.)
But the thing that I don’t get is why it would be such a big deal. I mean, Christmas has become such a secular holiday throughout the years that its religious content is barely recognizable as anything other than a marketing gimmick.
Oh sure, there might be a move to “take it back,” to restore its religious character, but that leads to another point.
In terms of religious significance, the birth of Christ doesn’t carry a lot of weight. His ministry, the miracles, the death, the resurrection: those have significance.
But the birth? Oh sure, it’s important because everything that followed could only follow because it happened, and sure, it’s an entertaining story, but what does it mean? What lesson do we learn from it?
It just seems to me that all the story of the Nativity really does is provide us with a little bit of backstory and maybe some warm fuzzies, but it’s no Sermon on the Mount or Crucifixion.
And beyond that, there’s the fact that the person whose birth is being celebrated almost certainly wasn’t born on December 25th.
And wasn’t actually named Christ.
Given its origins it seems only appropriate that Christmas be a time in which Christians try to appease people other faiths. After all, it was added to the liturgical calendar as a means of satisfying pagan converts who didn’t want to give up their winter holiday Saturnalia.
Of course, others say that co-opting the date of a major pagan holiday was done as a sort of “in your face” move on the part of early Christians, which certainly would be in keeping with modern Christianity.
Ultimately, I think the best solution is just to not say anything. Just shut the hell up about Christmas, Chanukah, Kwanzaa, or whatever you do or don’t celebrate.
There’s no reason to get in the face of everyone you see and shout, “This is what I believe!” either metaphorically or literally as they’re walking along minding their own business and trying to buy “holiday” presents for people.
Let the expression of your faith be something private and personal; form an intimate connection with your god that doesn’t have to be shouted about from the rooftops or flashed on a giant LCD screen in Times Square.
Just a thought.
Despite all of the above bitching about some of the many, many, many annoyances of the season, I honestly think that – regardless of your faith or lack thereof – having a time of year set aside in which you stop to reflect on the people in your life and how much they mean to you and try, in some small way, to show them that through the simple act of gift-giving, is a good idea, and that all of the acrimony about what it’s called just needs to be set aside.
Speaking of giving gifts to the people you love, today I bought myself a heat and massage pad with speakers:
I have to say it’s pretty cool. It allows you to plug in any audio source, such as an MP3 player, and you can actually sync the massage to the audio.
The speakers are a little tinny and staticy, but if you aren’t too close to them you don’t really notice.
Overall the only real complaints I have about it are the fact that while you can plug an iPod into it (via the headphone jack), it’s not actually built for iPod, which is to say that it doesn’t have an iPod dock. That would have been a nice feature, as it would allow me to use A/C power rather than the Nano’s battery, and it would actually allow me to control the Nano through the seat’s remote.
The other complaint I have is that the audio sync feature focuses on high frequency sounds rather than low frequency, so if you’ve got a bass-heavy track playing, you won’t get the response you might expect.
Having the speakers on the chair would make them ideal surround speakers for use with the computer, but when I went to plug them into the sub-woofer I was reminded that I only have a 2.1 system, since I never had anywhere to put surround speakers. Ah well.
I also bought myself some massaging slippers, apparently. I had thought that I’d just grabbed some slippers, but once I got home I discovered that they had on/off switches and a place for batteries. I’ve taken to calling them Frankenstein’s Slippers, since they use electricity and the housing for the batteries and massager elevate them about an inch.
The massaging action doesn’t really do much for me, and it’s loud, but they are fairly comfortable.
I went to the dentist this morning and had two temporary crowns put in, eating up a good chunk of my remaining Flex money.
I have to be without my upper partial until the permanent crowns come in, as the partial rests on those teeth.
Apparently I have one more crown to get, then I should be pretty well set with the dental work, I think. It’s about time.
After that it was off to do some shopping, and then home, and that pretty much brings things up to date.
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