Do They Know?

Okay, I pretty much love Christmas. I know I shouldn’t, since I’m a God-hating liberal heathen and all, but I do. I love Christmas carols. There are now TWO radio stations playing all Christmas music all the time, and I listen to both of them, although not all day every day. You can only hear “Last Christmas” by Wham! so many times before you’re ready to blast Foo Fighters or something instead.

Wham! does have an exclamation point, right? I can never remember. Damn musical groups with their damn clever punctuation.

Anyway. I love Christmas. I bought a Christmas tree and everything, even though I knew there was a 75% chance that the tree would not survive its first night in a home with two 12-week-old kittens. So far, so good, though – although now that I’ve written that, I bet I’ll go home and find tree carnage from one end of the house to the other. I sometimes like Christmas shopping, once I get in a groove of finding just the right things for my loved ones. I like Christmas morning. I like Christmas dinner. I buy Christmas presents for the animals, even. I’m that nutso. I love cheesy Christmas cartoons and movies. I love how Family Headquarters has so many decorations that it looks like the North Pole vomited all over it every year.

And I’ll tell you a secret: IF they do traditional Christmas carols instead of that new age Christian pop crap, I even like going to the cantata at my parents’ church. I’ve even been known to become incredibly moved during the candlelit “Silent Night” part of the program. That’ll fuck with my indie hipster cred, so don’t tell anyone.

Despite my decidedly ambivalent views about my personal belief system (such as it is), I often manage to find a few moments of absolute grace during the Christmas season. Sometimes, it’s the only time all year when that happens.

I’m having a tough time getting into Christmas this year, though. Want to know why? I’ll tell you: it’s because of JERRY FUCKING FALWELL and his hysterical right-wing nutjobs running around screaming all day long about how Christmas is being taken away from them.

For those of you outside the South (and Lynchburg in particular), I honestly don’t know how much this is in the media, but it’s on the news almost every single day here. Christmas is under attack! Our constitutional right to Christmas is being threatened! If you’re going to call that tree a Holiday Tree then I want it back! I donated a Christmas tree, dammit, not a Holiday Tree! And so on.

It makes me sad and angry. It makes me want to stop watching the news. It’s making me forget how much I like Christmas, because whenever it comes up I get so irritated that I want to move away to a place where they don’t have Christmas at all so I won’t have to listen to people freaking out about how their fundamental right to decorate an evergreen and stuff their faces with food and spend hundreds of dollars on iPods and XBOX 360s for their kids is being attacked.

You know what else I saw on the local news? As of last week, there were still 800 angels left on the local Salvation Army Angel Tree. Last year at this time, there were only 200. That’s really sad. Maybe all those people who are bitching about having Christmas taken away from them should go get an angel off the tree and make sure a few more kids are able to have a good Christmas this year.

Now there’s an idea.

12 Replies to “Do They Know?”

  1. Didn’t you see Clay Aiken and that other …talent show winner ( I forget the girl and the name of the show – CLARKSON! …still can’t remember name of the show. Top Singing Model or something?) Didn’t you go see them?

    Getting emotional at church isn’t gonna do any harm to your indie hipster cred. I’d be more concerned about the other stuff.

    Now, the nut-jobs are just being led by the sheep-herders into this fray, this frackas, because the Right has so many things it has simply f*cked up this year. The sheep herders want to distract from this administration for a while. The sheep herders need to pick a fight they can win and, really, what industry that depends on customers isn’t going to throw them a bone. Whatever, “Wal-mart isn’t Christmas enough for you? Fine, we’ll throw a nativity scene up in front of the store. Now, get in here and buy your Made in China War Toys and Bratwhore dolls and shut your mouth.”
    Done. Easy.
    Don’t hate them because they’re easily led and have no sense of this nation’s history – pity them for, truly, they no not what they do.

  2. Heh – here’s another secret: any time I mention my indie hipster cred, I’m joking. It doesn’t exist.

  3. What happened to the $10 tree? Didn’t you get a $10 tree that you were very excited about last year? Or did I dream that?

  4. “no” = “know”. of course.

    I’m stuck doing work I don’t want to do. again. I’m taking all day to get this thing done. I hate it. I hate it. Vomit.

    Anyway, I’ve recently discovered the joys of vicodin.
    happy happy
    joy

  5. you should have watched that Dear Santa show the other day on CBS… it was definitely a put you in the christmas mood kind of show… I cried all the way through, expect at the kid whose skate park closed down and Tony Hawk came and built the kid a skate ramp in his backyard.. boo hoo.. i can’t skate :(! Whatever.. at least the other kids had good letters.. like I want to help other kids, I want to be a doctor, I want daddy home from the war… etc. um.. that’s all

  6. i’ve been pretty anti-Slavenation Army ever since i heard that they are (historically speaking) a bunch of right-wing union busters.

    but anyway.

    i was just thinking, today, how much i like christmas, too. everyone seems to hate it these days, but i love it. this year i’m too fucking broke to buy shit, so i am going to have to find a way to cheaply make art for people, and actually, i’m pretty okay with that. :-) but only pretty okay. it made me sad to pass up some really perfect gifts simply due to cost.

  7. This is totally unrelated to your post, which by the way I totally agree with using a capital FUCK YEAH, but how is the Kite Runner? I keep wanting to pick it up at the bookstore. Also, I see Infinite Jest is on the docket. Mike will be proud. And some advice – just push through it. You won’t regret it.

  8. From what I heard, didn’t the crazy right-wingers get angry because the White House card this year, said “Happy Holidays” and they believed that the WH needed to put Christ back in Christmas? Whatever the case, they’re certifiable, so it doesn’t matter.

    Anyway, usually I love christmas, but this year, for some reason, it’s just not doing it for me. Hopefully I’ll get in the mood soon.

  9. Yeah, they did get upset at the “Happy Holidays” card from the Pres. It featured only the first pets frolicking in the snow.
    Honestly though, I support them in that effort. I mean, if he wants to make God central to her term and administration that make God central to everything. He’s doing it at Nascar but hesitates putting his faith on the Christmas card? It’s good that the people he’s trying to woo should get him hell.

    (of course, if he was anybody else I’d have a strong/easy defense for the action.)

    Also – I’ll be Christmas-y when I get back to Dallas and see my Mom. Holidays aren’t really holidays without good friends, a loved one or family you actually want to spend time with…

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