A few thoughts about the Holiday [sic] Season.
We approach the silly season, in which our politicians (yes, our beloved Democrats) beat their chest and bray about their religiosity. This season is always in season, of course, but rarely so obnoxiously as during this "holiday season" which stretches from approximately July 4th though Memorial Day, inclusive, providing a respite for only a brief few moments before and after Flag Day, but most intensely for the next 6 weeks until a welcome respite of alcoholic indulgence flushes it out of system on January 1st. Then it's taxes and basketball that will not end.
We know, of course, that God was an American, a football fan, a lover of pork barbecue and a proud driver of an SUV. Probably spoke Aramaic with an Arkansas accent, when he went hunting. We know this because our whole culture seems to forgotten so many things that we know what ain't so, and we have so deeply lost our cultural self-respect, indeed perhaps culture itself, that we observe these holidays increasingly not as cultural events, or religious events, or social events but as shibboleths by which we sort our "down home real Amurrica", whose virtue is accepted by judicial notice rather than proof, from our "liberal East Coast 'elitist' scum", since we know that Pat Robertson and James Dobson and Bill O'Reilly are not elitists and cannot ever be. I "shore" expect to bump into them when I am at the Super Wal-Mart buying diapers and shaving cream.
Now, failing to participate in Christmas loudly and with Dobson- and O'Reilly-approved vocabulary in your office, your shop, your restaurant, you will face down the wrath of the Christian Crusaders, ready to make sure that, as the "Good Book" apparently must have said somewhere, before the name of Jesus every knee shall indeed bow. They will kick yours until it bends, forward if you are lucky.
(Of course, the religion police are a little less friendly towards Hall'o'ween, a point for another day.)
Our would-be masters, in whatever pantsuit, haircut, hairshirt or bikini wax that their advisers have told them to don for the time, will go through the rituals of "our religion", whatever that is. They will say forgettable things and, having forgotten them, we will collectively move on. O'Reilly and Dobson will be what they are and do what they do.
While the obnoxiousness of occasional aggressive Christian crusaderism against us heathen atheist secular ain't-got-the-Spirit, must-be-murdering-someone-in-a-house-of-sinful-drink scum is manifest, not every violation of etiquette, taste or even legal fairness requires a lawsuit or cry of outrage from my secular sisters and brothers. Sometimes a sniff and a condescending pat on the head to the Crusaders is all that is needed.
Someone I know very well in "meatspace life" is more staunch than this secular pulpit banger. He objects to his employer holding a "Christmas" party, and does not give Christmas gifts to his parents or other family members. While the religious significance of Christmas to me is zero, it means seeing my parents smile, my boys laugh, my wife feel happy. Perhaps it's a silly tradition, but we could use more good-natured silliness. To secular acquaintances who "go faux" with a "Solstice party," I say a reluctant "that ain't kosher." While Solstice may be a meaningful day to Wiccans and earth religion followers, and perhaps to farmers and herdsmen counting the days and their supply of grain and grasses near the Arctic Circle, it means even less than Kwanzaa to most suburban and urban Americans and has nothing to do with our lifestyle, except for a perverse sort of observance of Christmas in the breach. Enjoy the damn holiday; if you were in India, would you hide in your hotel room and not enjoy Diwali, or Naw Ruz?
With Thanksgiving, we see probably less sanctimony, and that is fine. One need not be thankful to a postulated deity to be thankful to one's loved ones for their having not throttled you when you have deserved it, for showing you good will when you were not so easy to show good will to, for smiling and nodding when your stories were boring, for having given you encouragement when you were despondent. That's more than enough thankfulness to generate, especially for a species ill-inclined to that emotion. The history of the day is complex, and rife with historical pain for many people, including specifically some Native Americans (but not all, of course.) But even if the first Thanksgiving was a prelude to theft and genocide.
So to all secular-minded folk, I wish you a Happy Thanksgiving and a Merry Christmas.