Christ-less Xmas

Lately we have all heard about some outrageous lawsuits concerning Christmas. I am probably the last person that anyone would expect to come out for Christmas, considering that I am an atheist. Community and home owner groups have asked one family to remove a nativity scene from their yard, retailers across the country have instructed their employees to use the non-denominational greeting of "Happy Holidays" instead of "Merry Christmas", the Christmas trees at both the White House and in Rockefeller Center are called "Holiday Trees". This is ridiculous. What is Christmas without Christ? What are the holidays without their religious beginnings? My answer: "Nothing." Without religion Christmas and Hanukkah are nothing. The only reason that these holidays were ever celebrated were for their religious meanings.

Instead, Americans are waking up early, sometimes at 4:00AM, to rush to shopping centers to stand in line for hours and to fight with others over some half-priced, door buster gift that the recipient probably doesn't even want. Maybe you don't remember my Nov. 9 entry ("... Americans Want Gift Cards"). A reported 80% of Americans want gift cards for Christmas, and 70% of those people would prefer universal cash cards. So basically, your loved ones don't want you to waste the day after Thanksgiving (a day that many Americans have as a holiday from work) shopping for them. All you have to do is stop by National City one of more than a dozen other banks to pick up a gift card by Visa, Mastercard, or American Express. These gift cards work just like cash and can be used for anything.

I say...

You are going to kill yourself by working overtime and saving money for months to finance your holiday gift giving. Or, like some, max out high interest credit cards to buy gifts for people who might return them to the very store that you visited at 6:00AM for that spectacular door buster. You are going to get at least one gift that you really don't want, and you might even return it yourself. You are probably also going to get at least one gift card that you will go back to the same stores that you braved on "Black Friday" to buy something that you really want.

When what you should do this year is...

If you want to celebrate Christmas or Hanukkah, celebrate it for the REAL reason; the religious reason. Put up a nativity, go to mass, have a huge family dinner. Praise your god and the teachings that you believe in. Those teachings say nothing about non-denominational holiday cards, Black Friday door busters, or a thousands of dollars in debt.

Or if you are one of those others like me...

Then don't celebrate Christmas at all, because it wasn't created for us. Don't sue your child's school because he came home with a finger painting titled "Merry Christmas".