We’re All Just Assholes On Soapboxes, Me Included

DISCLAIMER:  If you require your season’s greetings in certain wording and love hate filled tirades and commentary bashing other belief systems, this post may be offensive.  Because I’m hearing the word Christ come out of your mouth, but not hearing the love that your Christ embodied.   


Happy Thanksgiving. Happy Kwanzaa.  Merry Christmas. Happy Ashura. Happy Hanukkah. Happy Bodhi Day. Hope your Santa Lucia Day was great.  Enjoy your Las Posadas.  AND Happy New Year.

We all know my thoughts on the War Against Christmas.  A War on Anything pretty much chaps my ass, due to the fact it’s an enormous waste of time, energy, and listening space.  There are so many other topics and issues in this world that need attention.

Nobody is taking the Christ out of Christmas.  So stop saying it.  It they were taking the Christ out of Christmas, you would have stopped talking about it years ago.  Because “they” <---- the imaginary Christ-less Christmas Gestapo would have made you stop.   Every year, this nonsense clogs up my news, my television, my Facebook, and more importantly--my breathing space--- so I write a post every year when the urge to scream becomes overwhelming.

I’m gonna need you need to get a hold of yourselves! Turn off the 24 hour News Source.  They ran out of shit to talk about 20 hours ago, and are now feeding you hysterical propaganda.  True fucking story.  Go put up some Holiday Lights, make some hot chocolate, read a Dickens’ novel, create a scene for your Elf on a Shelf that the kids will remember for years to come, call an old friend, sit by a fire, write your greeting cards, etc...  Find something constructive to do with your time. 

I call it Christmas Tree.  I call it a Christmas Parade.  I don’t give fuck if others choose not to do the same.  I also don’t give a fuck what the sign says, out of habit I will call it a Christmas Ornament every damn time.  In not one single occasion has anyone corrected me about my overzealous use of the word Christmas.

Coincidentally, my mother still calls all gas stations U-tote-M.  We are creatures of habit, you see. 
It’s no big deal, until you make it one.  So don’t.  Unless someone walks up to you, yanks the Santa hat off your head, and says “I need you to stop saying Merry Christmas RIGHT NOW, or we are going to shoot you,” nobody has tried to stop the way you celebrate your Holiday.

Happy Holidays.  Season’s Greetings. That sums up all those holidays that mean so much to so many different people in a freakin’ nutshell.  Some professional environments would like you to say Holiday so that it includes every customer and vendor under one umbrella.  It’s not a big deal.  I don’t know everyone’s religious preference. Honestly, if I were to be 100% real with you, I don’t care!  If I know you personally celebrate Christmas, I will probably say “Merry Christmas.”  If I offer a “Happy Holidays,” you would be wise to just take it.  Take it kindly.  Hold it to your heart with glee, because it can easily be replace it with a “Fuck Off” in five seconds flat.  Tis the Season.

This actually happened to a friend of mine.  She said, “Happy Holidays.”  This, apparently, warranted a hateful, informative “Taking the Christ out Christmas” tirade from an individual. 

I have one thing to say about that, I wish--- really, really, really—WISH a motherfucker would.  I do.  An individual would rue the day I offered tidings of joy only to receive a hate speech in return.    Rue. The. Day.
There are people that continually have problems with everything, thus ensues the War Against… Everyone reach around behind yourself, pull that stick out of your ass----- and just enjoy the season.  Simmer down.  Stop worrying about what the White House calls their tree.  Stop worrying about the Muslims next door.  Enjoy. Your. Space. And. What’s happening in it right this moment.  If you make statements like, “The Muslims and the Atheists are (insert random, mythical offense)”  I doubt.  Truly.  Whole heartedly DOUBT…. the Muslims or Atheists are in your space enough to even affect your situation.  

If it’s positivity, no matter the verbiage utilized, enjoy it.  Most people say Happy Holidays because they want to include everyone.  Most non-Christian religions are not offended by Merry Christmas—Thank GOD Ben Stein wrote that letter in 2005 or we’d never have know.. only not.  Also I’d like to mention that the part about the White House was added in 2009 by someone other than Ben Stein.   I’ve worked with every religion under the sun, and never once have I witnessed any non-Christian individual make an enormous deal about this season and the words used.  Howevercomma I’ve seen many a Christian get their panties in a bunch when seeing the words HAPPY HOLIDAYS. 

Don’t get me wrong, I find it equally as irritating when non-religious groups infringe on the rights of religious groups.  You can pray and celebrate wherever you want, whenever you want--- but understand that not every prays  or celebrates the way you do, when you do.  Respect everyone’s right to call a fucking tree whatever they want to call it.   They aren’t trying to convert you, nor is it a godforsaken conspiracy to remove Christ from Christmas or Kwa from Kwanzaa.  Get OVER it. 

We are a hodge podge planet, which civilization has occupied for a really long time.  Our holiday practices are borrowed and patched together from a slew of other places in time.  So relax and enjoy life.  It’s too short to demand everyone to think and speak the exact way you do.  It shouldn’t diminish your belief system at all. 

I don’t expect everyone to agree with my belief system or my way of ringing in the holiday.  I do expect when I say “Happy Holidays,” for you to say “Thank You.”  You can say “Merry Christmas” back or whatever greeting you choose.  Then we will both smile.  The meaning of this season is thankfulness, kindness, happiness, togetherness, and family--- Not Wars on Anything or freaking out in paranoia about Wars Against your beliefs.  This is not the Crusades, the French Wars of Religion, Muslim conquests, the Reconquista, Second Sudanese Civil War, Lebanese Civil War, or the Thirty Years' War.  Those were actual Wars on religion.  People are killed.  Shit got real, to say the least.  The phrase “Happy Holidays” was the least of anyone’s problems.  Bet if you spoke with the people oppressed in these Wars, they would say they wished Happy Holidays was said to them. 

We live in a country that seems to be at odds right now, but we are still very fortunate to have the right to choose so much.  So I implore you to research everything about this time of year, find kindness in it.  This season has been coming around many, many years before this one.  It’ll probably come around many, many years after it.