Free Thought Blogs: Atheistic christmas.

To tell you the truth, this is more about an opportunity to get some time off from work where everyone else is too  (i.e. not much is happening so I can do so with a clear conscience), and the opportunity to eat some good food and just hang out with the ones I love.  That's it.  So I really forgot that this is generally a "big deal" to a lot of Americans.  Maybe because I have moved up here to a much more secular area of our country.  I am not getting accosted with overt preaching, or the Faux Noise nonsense of some war (in their minds) against this holiday season.  It's actually been one of the more enjoyable for me.  (By the way, I favour the European tradition of doing gifts and stuff on christmas eve.  We have already eaten good food, had good drink, and done our celebration.  I get to sleep in tomorrow.  By the way, our traditional meal consists of lobster, smoked salmon, caviar, champagne, etc.  You know, good stuff I didn't have last month.)

Of course, as someone who doesn't buy into any of the legends surrounding this holiday, I forget that some folks get their panties in a bunch about it for one reason or another.  So Edwin Kagin put things in a bit of a perspective for me when I read this post.  I think I most just shook my head ruefully as I read it.

It is Christmas Eve, and I have almost lived through this year’s annual greatest of holidays. At midnight, Christmas will begin, and twenty-four hours later it will end. It will be over! But not yet. At this writing, the world is shutting down in anticipation. The 24 Hour Kroger closed at 6:00 pm. Gas stations are closing. People are smiling. Even NRP is playing Xmas music.

Lots of people are in church. Children are nestling to greater or lesser degrees of snugness in their beds awaiting, or fearing, the coming of Santa, an anagram for Satan. Lots of people are getting drunk, and lots are getting laid.

Santa Clause is coming to town. Not a very good modern role model actually. Overweight; labor laws scoffer; animal rights ignorer; and—believe it with horror—a smoker!

Some folks will die in car crashes from negligence and some will die by their own hands from, inter alia, pills, or pistols, unable to deal with what they experience as the depression and loneliness of the day. And it will be observed how awful it was for this to happen on Christmas. How dare they stain the wonder and magic of Christmas with their blood?

After the ripping of the packages, some fine meals will be consumed and much booze will be ingested.

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