Free Imagine Blogs

Jingle my bells…. The obligatory seasonal greeting.

Jingle all the ff-ing way, and I mean ALL the way, everywhere, every day this month. On my list of things I hate about Christmas, the inescapable seasonal sing-a-long stupidity rates extremely high. Every performer out there at some point seems to feel the need to bring out a song, add bells and say the word “Christmas” or “snow” at any given point in the song and tadaah! We have another Christmas song. So now I am jinglebell rocking through the grocery store, walking home through a winter wonderland, dreaming of a white Christmas while Rudolph the red nosed reindeer is telling merry gentlemen “God rest ye”, not really a silent or holy night is it?

And there we have it… the silent and holy night. I am not a traditional (or any kind) of Christian, but I can clearly see how there is little left of the original messages this holy day is supposed to deliver. As with it’s pagan roots, Christmas is a celebration of the return of light on earth. Be it a messiah or literally the lengthening of days, it is a celebration of hope, life and light. Not money, noise or arguments about the proper way to relay seasonal greetings.

Oddly enough, it is almost considered offensive to relate the holidays to it’s religious roots, be it Pagan or Christian. Saying “merry Christmas” is almost an insult, because, Jews, Muslims, Hindi, Atheists, Buddhists, Satanists, Asatruar, Raeliens and Scientologists….(and any I forgot) might not celebrate “Christmas” and take offense. Now I get the point where Jews celebrate Hanukah… and I understand that Satanists might not be too happy about celebrating their “adversary’s” birthday, but for the rest of ‘em, what’s the fuzz? I consider people wishing me a merry Christmas a friendly bunch… and I hate the whole Christmas thing, but the fact that someone is wishing me a good time seems to me like a good thing to me and I appreciate it as such. Off course when I wish them a happy Yule in return they stare at me blankly, blink once and then turn away, visibly remembering that I’m “weird like that”.

So frustrated as I may be about Christmas songs, kids celebrating Santa Claus’ coming to town instead of the spiritual feast, everybody being too political correct to wish each other a merry Christmas and the fact that there is absolutely no way around the whole blasted holiday!!! I do wish all of you out there a merry Christmas, A Happy Yule, Happy Hanukah, A good feast of light and the best of times the coming days of celebration and light.