Happy Holidays, and shut the hell up!

I like Christmas, I want to get that out there right from the start. Christmas is the season when everyone takes a deep breath and relaxes a little, it’s a time to rest and renew, a season of blockbuster new movies and the cheerful reunion of old friends. Alan Rickman uttered my favorite Christmas movie line in Die Hard when he espoused “It’s Christmas Theo, is the time of miracles. So be of good cheer… and call me when you hit that last lock!” Christmas, like a good Bruce Willis flick, is a whole lot of fun. If you can’t find something to like about Christmas just park the car in the garage, shut the door and leave the motor running.

Chicago’s big on Christmas. From Macy’s well-intentioned efforts to recreate the windows of Marshall Field’s, to the lights on Michigan Avenue, the city puts its best foot forward. Cabbies smile and let you cut in front of them in traffic. People say hello to their neighbors. It doesn’t last but it’s fun for a while.

In Chicago we tell ourselves that the cold weather is actually an integral part of the holiday, that those poor fools who are hanging garland from their palm trees are missing out on the real spirit of the season; of course we’re full of shit but who cares? I like the way that businesses slow down a bit and people drink and eat a bit more. I like the look on the faces of little kids when they see Santa at the mall, and the look on Santa’s face when one of those little kids takes a piss in his lap. Ho Ho Ho.

What I don’t like is the typically American way in which different factions try to hijack the holiday to promote their own particular agenda. First and foremost, of course, is the whole Christ’s birthday lobby, followed closely by their atheist counterparts. Yes the atheists have it on the facts but the Christians have idealism and good cheer on their side. At any rate, what’s the big deal? Come on guys, have another egg-nog, just let it lie.

Anyone with even a rudimentary understanding of history knows that there’s no basis for declaring December 25th Christ’s birthday. In fact, early Christians decried the annual and ancient celebrations that occurred at that time of the year as heathen tribute to the old guard of the gods. As late as the 17th Century, the Puritans of early New England, those most dour and devout of our founding fathers, subscribed to the pagan celebration theory and eschewed Christmas canoodling. No, Christmas falls where it does on the Roman calendar because the Roman Brass – either Emperor Constantine or, a few centuries later, the Catholic Church – wanted to consolidate the peasant vote. Pragmatic politicians that they were, they folded the immensely popular feast of Saturnalia into a fete that tipped its hat to the new sheriff in town and Christ was born. Metaphorically speaking.

Everything else about Christmas – the giving of gifts, Santa, the tree, lights and candles and mistletoe, were borrowed from other cultures, most of it within the last couple of hundred years. Of course, being Americans, once we adopted those traditions we immediately declared that we’d invented them and that ours was the only way to go. And that everyone who believed anything else was wrong. Don’t agree? We’ll drop a few bombs on your ass.

But before you Christ haters start to get all smug, wipe that Grinchie-poo sneer off your face. Christmas is about more than historical facts. There’s a reason that folks wax rhapsodic about the spirit of the season. Who really cares when Christ was born, or if he was a simple Jewish carpenter with great oratorical flourish or God’s bona fide representative here on earth? It’s what Christmas really stands for that counts. Buddha, Muhammad, Gandhi; they all had good things to say and they all have their detractors and fans. Does one have to be right? Take care of each other, be kind, remember to let the people who are important to you know that they are loved. That’s the message and what difference does it make who the messenger is as long as you get it?

So today I’d like to wish each and every one of you a very, very Happy Holiday season. I sincerely hope that your Holiday’s, however you see fit to celebrate them, are merry and bright. If I haven’t told you in a while, then let me say how thankful I am to have those of you who matter most as a part of my life. As Tiny Tim said, “God Bless Us Every One.” Let it go at that and don’t start some big debate about the meaning of God. Give someone a kiss under the mistletoe and have a cocktail or two. Tis the season.

— Ric Hess, Dec 21, 06:42 AM

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