Its that time of year boys and girls where we all (try to) gather with family and friends to celebrate a holiday of some type.   Be it the Jews and their Hanukkah/Chanukah, the Christians and their birth of Christ or even the African Americans with their Kwanzaa. I’m sure Im leaving out a race/creed/religion or culture but that’s ok, since honestly none of your piddly celebrations mean anything in relations to Christmas.   Yep I said Christmas, but what you dont understand or maybe you do is that Christmas is NOT what it use to be, hell its not been the christian holiday of choice in many many years. Its a commercial holiday and as such its a time to celebrate what you have in your life, but its also a time to GET A LOT OF STUFF YOU DON’T NEED. Think about it; ties, socks, underwear, miscellaneous crap, you can get those yourself all year, but come Christmas your kids, neighbors, co-workers all stand in long ass lines to get you something you don’t NEED or honestly really want, but its the THOUGHT that counts. Right?

No one buys gifts to celebrate the birth of Christ. Yea per the ‘bible’ there were three kings (I think that’s right) that brought gifts to the new baby and this is where the ‘gift’ giving comes from. But really when you rip open that shinny box of goodness do  you really think of the tiny 8 pounds 6 ounces sweet baby jesus?  No, you think of the money you just saved by getting that gift.  Then the second thought is, damn I should have spent more/less on the person that gave me this gift.

If you think the ‘holidays’ are not just commercial entities that have a life of their own that have only a very slight semblance of their original purpose, then you need to get out more often.  Look at it this way, Wal-Mart starts putting out Christmas decorations about a week before Halloween (sometimes sooner!).  I’ve been tempted to start celebrating holidays based off Wal-Marts marketing schedule.  Not only would I not need to remember to get stuff on time, but I would actually be early to when the actual event is to occur.   I could celebrate Valentines Day in late December or early January,  Easter comes in early February (at the latest), throw in St Patricks, Cinco De Mayo, Mothers Day, Father’s Day, Independence Day/July 4th, Halloween, and Thanksgiving into the mix and you will see what ALL of these ‘holidays’ come out on the market MONTHS prior to them actually being in ’season’.  This ladies and gentlemen is commercial marketing.

Would you like another example?  Well I remember the ‘blue laws’ when I was growing up as a child.  This was put into place when the majority of the herd went to church on Sundays and it was deemed a day of rest that required all but very few business to close.  It wasn’t until I was 8-10 yrs old that these were done away with, why you ask?  A few reasons I’m sure, ranging from the herd finally awaking to see that they couldn’t buy their beer on Sundays which is when football was on!  But, really it was mainly due to the retailers finally figuring out that the customers for the majority were off work and they could easily be spending money in their establishments and not wasting it by letting it sit in their pockets or in the bank of all places.  If you look at this mentality you can easily tie this change in to the drastic commercializing of the Christmas holiday.

Now on to the the topic of Christmas/holiday lights, can you really watch this video and believe that this has anything to do with the celebration of the birth of Christ?  Is it a cool way to impress your family and friends and if your lucky get on the news or YouTube? Sure it is, but does it make the Pope want to come to your house to bless you and make you a saint?  Probably not.  Maybe if they would have thrown in a nativity scene that had little baby Jesus holding sparklers, that might have won over the Papacy.

Now we get started on the big guy, Santa Claus and how this TOTALLY (doesn’t) relates to the birth of Christ and how this allows the faithful to show how much they believe each year.  But, even if he is called ‘Saint Nicholas’  I can assure you that the majority of children are not putting Santa and Jesus in the same frame of thought.  I am a big proponent of kids believing in Santa.  Santa is Christmas to me just as he is to millions of kids around the world.  Now at a certain age we all stop believing as we find out that the past 10yrs of our lives have been a LIE.  Yep our parents lie to us just like their parents lied to them and so on and so forth.  But you know what?  The belief that Santa is real is what makes Christmas a magical time for children.  Without that you have kids that just expect stuff to be handed to them on Christmas day.  At least with the premises of Santa held over their little heads you get a few weeks maybe a month of perfect behavior out of your children.  My son is 6 and still believes and I will make sure I reinforce that with him each and every year. My best friends kids are like 11 and they don’t believe and just expect stuff each year.  You can’t fault them, all the Lifetime, TNT and USA movies all portray Santa as something that is ‘mystical’ and most kids take this as meaning that Santa isn’t real.  The only way a kid should find out Santa isn’t real is if they wander into the closet, basement, attic or where ever you hide the stash of present.  This will allow them to put one and two together and at that time they will either confront their parents or they will keep that as their little secret.  Most kids will not tell their parents so they can keep ‘cheating’ the system and knowing what they are getting before the big day. Not that I ever did that!  Honestly, my parents to this day have never told me Santa wasn’t real.  Yea most years, even to this day I will snoop and hunt out the presents to see what either me or my siblings are getting for Christmas, but I still believe since they told me he was real.

So let me stop the rambling and wrap this up by saying,

Merry Christmas to all and to all a good night!