I don't know why I participate in Christmas. My family is openly atheist/agnostic, my children are being raised to be proud of their belief system and quite honestly distrustful of organized religion of any sort. My wife, although she hates when I say this, is a hippy chic. She HATES consumerism, she hates getting rid of anything because she doesn't want it to end up in a land fill (I think the new hip lingo for that is "hoarder"?) and she believes we all have too much crap and too little connection with our fellow man. We joke every year about NOT celebrating Christmas but when it comes down to it, that would utterly crush the kids who have grown up with Christmas being about the celebration with family, the time off of work I get and the all around fun of the holidays, but NOT about the religious aspects whatsoever. In fact I'm not actually 100% sure that the little ones know who the fuck Jesus is let alone that Christmas has anything to do with him at all.
So I guess my original statement was false, I DO know why I participate in Christmas, because my kids enjoy it. To me, the reality is that if we removed all of the lights, and the trees and the gifts and the rampant consumerism associated with Christmas and ONLY celebrated it as a religious holy day, like say Palm Sunday or Ash Wednesday, most people wouldn't give a shit about it, not even christians. It would turn into another one of those, "I haven't been to church all year I better not miss it today" holidays (which I guess it kind of is now, except now you also get candy canes). Although most people think of themselves as affiliated with some organized religious group, my guess is that's a carry over from their parents, not because they're religiously attending church or a synagogue or anything (see what I did there?). So the whole insane pageantry of Christmas really is what keeps it in the front of our mind so to me, it's ironic that it's the political party that is screaming, "let the market decide our fate" that is also screaming, "you're ruining the true meaning of Christmas!".
I know the second everyone reads this next sentence they're going to cringe and a lot of you are going to tune out, but honestly, I don't get it; Republicans profess to be for the small business owner and always preach that we CANNOT raise taxes on the ultra wealthy (or on anyone or anything) but are also backed strongly by the Christian right wing moral majority groups, which I'm not sure how you can easily reconcile. How can cold corporations that are obviously ONLY in existence to make as much money as possible at almost all costs coexist hand-in-hand with good, kind, put people first charitable groups? So you're a small business owner, or a MASSIVE business owner, and you find out that rolling out a huge marketing campaign that reads, "HAPPY HOLIDAYS!" is amazingly more effective and spectacularly more cost effective than, "MERRY CHRISTMAS!", you find this out by the response you get from your customers by way of MORE dollars and cents transactions resulting from your marketing. So you stick with the HAPPY HOLIDAYS, because that's what the market is dictating. You are letting the market decide how you market yourself, and those decisions based on such a routine seems like it would be firmly in the wheelhouse of the Republican party. But then along comes FOX News with a video camera doing an expose on your store and how you're "ATTACKING CHRISTMAS!". Um, what? I don't get it either and I"m not being anti-Republican or anti-Christmas, I just don't understand the dichotomy of these two apparently diametrically opposed positions.
This is just all too KOOKY for me, this shouldn't even be an issue. So here I am, asking you out there to explain this to me, because honestly I cannot figure it out as it is currently being viewed by me. I am looking to be corrected here I want to learn...I'd also like a special massage from you if you're cute, I'm under a lot of stress, it's the holidays after all....
So I guess my original statement was false, I DO know why I participate in Christmas, because my kids enjoy it. To me, the reality is that if we removed all of the lights, and the trees and the gifts and the rampant consumerism associated with Christmas and ONLY celebrated it as a religious holy day, like say Palm Sunday or Ash Wednesday, most people wouldn't give a shit about it, not even christians. It would turn into another one of those, "I haven't been to church all year I better not miss it today" holidays (which I guess it kind of is now, except now you also get candy canes). Although most people think of themselves as affiliated with some organized religious group, my guess is that's a carry over from their parents, not because they're religiously attending church or a synagogue or anything (see what I did there?). So the whole insane pageantry of Christmas really is what keeps it in the front of our mind so to me, it's ironic that it's the political party that is screaming, "let the market decide our fate" that is also screaming, "you're ruining the true meaning of Christmas!".
I know the second everyone reads this next sentence they're going to cringe and a lot of you are going to tune out, but honestly, I don't get it; Republicans profess to be for the small business owner and always preach that we CANNOT raise taxes on the ultra wealthy (or on anyone or anything) but are also backed strongly by the Christian right wing moral majority groups, which I'm not sure how you can easily reconcile. How can cold corporations that are obviously ONLY in existence to make as much money as possible at almost all costs coexist hand-in-hand with good, kind, put people first charitable groups? So you're a small business owner, or a MASSIVE business owner, and you find out that rolling out a huge marketing campaign that reads, "HAPPY HOLIDAYS!" is amazingly more effective and spectacularly more cost effective than, "MERRY CHRISTMAS!", you find this out by the response you get from your customers by way of MORE dollars and cents transactions resulting from your marketing. So you stick with the HAPPY HOLIDAYS, because that's what the market is dictating. You are letting the market decide how you market yourself, and those decisions based on such a routine seems like it would be firmly in the wheelhouse of the Republican party. But then along comes FOX News with a video camera doing an expose on your store and how you're "ATTACKING CHRISTMAS!". Um, what? I don't get it either and I"m not being anti-Republican or anti-Christmas, I just don't understand the dichotomy of these two apparently diametrically opposed positions.
This is just all too KOOKY for me, this shouldn't even be an issue. So here I am, asking you out there to explain this to me, because honestly I cannot figure it out as it is currently being viewed by me. I am looking to be corrected here I want to learn...I'd also like a special massage from you if you're cute, I'm under a lot of stress, it's the holidays after all....
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