Christmas Crusades

On a scale of one to John Edwards, some things really suck big time. And one of those things is this constant "war on Christmas" talk that has been making the rounds.

Apparently, it goes like this:

1) Baby born in a barn and his mom believes her husband isn't the father. While this is typical in Maine, it became the subject of one of the world's biggest religions and countless movies that Mel Gibson could tun into some Jew-baiting.

2) At some point, the Catholic Church noticed that when converting European pagans, it was hard to convince them to stop celebrating Winter Solstice with fir trees and decorations and egg nog and fruitcake. So the Church decided to appropriate these traditions into Christianity, arguing that late December was when Jesus was born and that decorating trees and getting the new Mr. T doll is the way to celebrate this.

3) Fast forward a couple thousand years, and Americans have effectively commercialized the holiday to now include reindeer, Santas, snowmen that come to life but don't murder children, and some pretty awful holiday songs by Bono and Elton John and Paul McCartney. Not to mention office parties where you can photocopy your butt.

4) Some major retailers notice that Jews and Muslims like to spend money too, so they make a strategic decision to refer to sales as "Holiday Sales" rather than "Christmas Sales" and tell their overworked and underpaid smock-wearing staffers to say "Happy Holidays" instead of "Merry Christmas".

5) Some chip on the shoulder Christians get pissed at the idea that anyone would acknowledge any other religion besides their own, and decide that the real assault on their holiday comes from this rather than the overcommercialization and appropriation of pagan rituals. They promptly call Fox News.

6) Fox News takes a break from covering ACORN and showing former beauty queens reading the news, and adds serious coverage to this War on Christmas.

7) Meantime, I'm the only kid in 1st grade who didn't get a toy replica of the General Lee from Dukes of Hazard.

Frankly, we'd all do well to appreciate the important things about the holidays. Getting boozed up and wearing awful sweaters while watching Snoopy save Christmas!