I have a wide collection of friends and acquaintances, from all walks of life. Gay, straight, bi, and transgender, political leanings on both sides (Ok, so I only have two republican friends, but I still love them both, despite their shortcoming), the entire rainbow of ethnicities, and of course, every religious faith. Variety is the spice of life, and I consider this so much more true when collecting people around you. I respect each one for their individualities, as I know they respect me for mine. In case you ever wondered, I was raised Catholic, dabbled in Pagan, was a staunch aethist, to now some sort of weird amalgamation of Buddhist-Agnostic. The Religion of Sharona isn't exactly a seriously thought out one, although I will get a little twingy if someone starts mentioning the Babay Jaybus too many times in my home.
However, one thing I am serious about, and will passionately argue about, is the celebration of the Holiday Season. It's called Christmas in my house, although I will happily pack up some apple bundt cake for a Winter Solstice party, merrily craft dreidels for some Jewish friends, and embrace whatever tune anyone else wants to sing during their preferred celebration of this time of year.
Unless they chose to PC the fuck out of it and rightly piss me the hell off with their overly-non-denominational renouncement of joy during winter. This equally goes to winter-whiners. Fuck you, too.
You see...here's the arguement to both you assholes. Sit down, and listen.
Winter-Depressed, Whiners of Angsty Holiday History
"I had a bad christmas in 1992, so every year is just Meh to me"
Oh, get over yourself. Everyone over the age of about 10 has had a bad christmas once. You either didn't get your pony, or you walked in on Mom and Dad doing more than kiss under mistletoe. At some point you had the life-crushing discovery that Santa was just an old dude named Dave at the mall who smelled of rum and sweat. The older we get, the more shitty holiday seasons we rack up in our personal history. And the more depressing they get. My recent horrors include: Bob's death in 2008. It was too snowy to have a service, so all of us who knew him were locked in our homes, mourning by ourselves. Scott ignored my grieving, and whined about not seeing his mother and therefor stomped loudly and pouted. So I frantically went into over-christmas mode and jingle-bell rocked my hobbling little family through the dismal cloud of misfortune. No matter what I did, tho, it never was enough for that jerk, despite the fact that I was trying to deal with my own personal trauma. 2009? yeeea that one sucked too, and entirely for that jerk's sake. He was determined to treat me as bad as he could before finally ditching me two weeks after the 25th. My ex-husband was also chiming in,and my son was being threatened with expulsion. I had no job, and was arguing with CSUS to get my records sent up here in time for me to at least join school for winter quarter, which I later failed to do. I spent pretty much all of December crying because I couldn't figure out what I was doing wrong in my life.
But you know what? It's 2010...and I have my beautiful tree up, and tinsel everywhere. I'm almost finished making cards, and eagerly await the cookie exchange party on friday with my friends (some old, some new, all awesome). I have been happily scampering from store to store, with only two minor freakouts, and I cannot chip the grin off my face when I wrap these painstakingly chosen gifts. I'e got three racks of chocolate covered awesome in my fridge, and you bet your booty I'll be making about eight dozen more confections throughout the next month...and probably well into January because I have too many cookbooks with too many awesome possibilities.
Yea, life has sucked. And while it's tolerable now, I could still lament that there's still a lot of things I could fix. But instead I chose to wrap myself in the warmth that can be created in the cold. The warmth of knowing I have a HUGE group of kick ass friends. I have the world's cutest cat. I have an insanely supportive family (ok, I chose to acknowledge the insanely supportive members of said family, and forgive those who are just...insane). I have an AWESOME child, who still sees magic in snow, reverently pulls out Santa's Cookie Dish as if it were a holy relic, and whose smile outshines the darkest winter night. No matter how shitty life can get, at any time of year, my life is still warm and joyous because I have him in it.
Even if you don't have a child lighting your way, you still probably have a lot to be blessed with. Whether it's good friends, a roof over your head, a job, or family...damnit, you still have blessings. And just because you've had bad past holidays, the only reason this one will suck is because you are emo'ing that into fruition.
NonDenominational Overly Politically Correct, Let's All Be Aetheist and Suck the Joy out of Tinsel Dipshits
"Oh, I don't follow a chosen religion, so I refuse to acknowledge your Eggnog & will pretentiously blather on about the meaningless of religion"
You know what, some of us aren't really acknowledging a religion, here, either. Santa and presents has nothing to do with a faith. Cookies and togetherness have nothing to do with Jesus. Look outside! It's the shittiest weather we humans are confronted with. It's gray all the time, there's fewer hours of daylight, it's bitter cold, almost everything is dead... basically Mother Nature's way of testing the effectiveness of Prozac. She's bitchslapping us, then shitting more snow on top of our icey roads out of spite. So what do we do? We pull on mittens, tack up twinkling lights all over the house, throw piles of brightly coloured tinsel all over everything, and make silly critters out of snow. We drink the sweetest concoctions ever created (gingerbread latte, I love you so), and fill boxes of cakes and cookies to pass to our neighbors. We wrap thoughtful tokens of appreciation for our loved ones and hand it to them, as a way of saying "you are awesome, and I appreciate you being in my life!" We are more charitable during the months of November and December than any other time of the year, dropping change into red buckets, buying Toys For Tots, and tossing a few extra cans of soup on the grocery conveyor to later plunk in the big Food Bank box sitting by the exit. We have the sudden urge to spend time around a fire with our families...even if we can't stand them any other time of year. We send cards to people we haven't spoken to in years, just to remind them that we remember that they exist, and are worth at least a paper snowman to us.
I dated a Jewish guy for a while, we had a tree and a menorah. We had stuffed grape leaves at his mother's house, and roast beef at mine. I don't think he was in any way offended that my family bought him a small gift, and they wrapped it in blue paper, too, if I recall. Feel Free to tell me otherwise, Saul! I will totally apologize for that awesome chess set.
My muslim friend? That boy will scarf down anything eggnog flavoured, and happily donned a santa cap during our holiday sales season. I have a few Pagan friends, and they have the merriest Winter Solstice you will ever find.
We call it "christmas" because that's the word we grew up with, and it's annoying and overly PC to wish everyone a "Warm Winter Season of NonDenominal Celebration". Yea, the word "christ" is in there, but my son has never once heard a single bible story and would probably answer "the guy who works down at 44th Market" if you asked him who Jesus was. Christmas = Santa, cookies, and awesome snowball fights in our world. When I wish you a Merry Christmas, I'm wishing you all the love and warmth I fill my soul with this time of year to fend off the cold outside.
I say Merry Christmas, but you can say whatever you want, just as long as you are Merry. Just don't be a Scroogey douche, or I'll douse you with eggnog, shove snow down your pants, and crumble gingerbread in your hair.
