Christmas for the infidels
Did I miss the memo? Since when does the (dreaded) holiday shopping season commence before Thanksgiving? The retailers rolled out their white lights, red bows, and green wreaths in glorious capitalistic synchrony, but all this before the turkey? And during an unseasonably warm November (before today, anyway, when I practically froze my balls off), the entire Christmas shopping spectacle put on by the retailers was laughable.
And by the way: We need a secular substitute for Christmas. The Jews conveniently propped up Chanukkah to work with the schedule, and a baker’s dozen of politically correct black academics celebrate Kwanzaa these days, but what about the people who don’t believe in sheeeit? Forget about Christmas; that’s for people who believe in Christ. We need to follow the shining path blazed by the Kwanzaa kooks and come up with a secular Christmas substitute.
Hm. I’m just brainstorming here, so work with me, people. Here’s what’s on my mental cocktail napkin:
- Lights. Lots of ‘em. Blinkin’ and shit.
- Snow, winter, stuff like that. People love celebrating weather. It’s gotta be some kinda winter festival.
- Pie. This holiday is pie-centric. Maybe different families develop pie specialties, and then you get together for a non-Christmas, winter festival-type potluck—where there are lots of blinking lights.
- Polar bears. They’re the mascot. Decorate the house with polar bears. Get a big, plastic polar bear for the lawn. The kids will love it.
- A scavenger hunt for the presents. This takes the hiding-the-goods element of Easter and combines it with the big-ticket items from Christmas.
And for a name? How about the “Winter Wonder?” Corny, sure, but the marketing people could run with it. Hell, I dunno, I’m open to suggestions.
November 25th, 2003 at 11:30 am
How about just celebrating the Winter Solstice? After all, that’s what it originally was, until the Christians decided that it was unholy, or evil, or pagan, or something to celebrate it, so they ascribed the birth of Jesus to that date instead. Christmas isn’t the only religious holiday to have been centered around the winter solstice, you know. :-)
And I’m with you on the crassness of commercialism this particular holiday season. I strolled into Best Buy around the beginning of November, and briefly noticed what looked like extended holiday hours — and they were attached to a November calendar! I asked one of the employees there, “Surely you’re not open until 10pm already?” He happily smacked his hands together and replied, “Yep! We’re so excited about the holidays that we’re staying open later to give you guys more time to romp around and have fun!” I swear, the corporate line couldn’t have been spouted-off any better. And I don’t even think he was a manager.
I also noticed Christmas decorations popping up in stores by mid-October. I mean, they at least used to have the decency to wait until after Halloween was over. Now…? Eh.
I like Christmas, but I need to be a little closer to the holiday to feel in the mood. And the sooner retail and commercial outlets try ramming it down my throat, the longer it’s going to take for that mood to hit me. And that means that it’ll take longer for those green papery things in my wallet to float into their cash registers.
Maybe *that* will mean something to them.
By the way, happy Thanksgiving, Tom. Hope everything’s going well for you and your family.
Take care.
November 26th, 2003 at 1:00 pm
Yow! The comment outshines the entry! I must say, though, that the “winter solstice” sounds rather tame to me. It certainly needs to be dressed up somehow. The polar bear mascot idea would go a long way toward giving it some pizazz.
Hope you have a good Thanksgiving, too.
p.s. bobo@bobo.com? Um http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=bobo&f=1 ?
November 27th, 2003 at 6:13 pm
Hey Tom,
Yes, I’m writing a comment on Thanksgiving Day, how lame is that?
Just for the record, I use the “bobo” thing because I’m not really all that keen on making my e-mail address available to anyone who cares to read it on the web. As it’s required on your site, I just made something up off the cuff (and something as lame as “bobo” didn’t take much thought). It was just something which came to mind, although I found your research on it amusing.
Who know?
Hope you had a good turkey day.
November 27th, 2003 at 8:32 pm
Matt: The e-mail address *is* required (it’s Movable Type’s fault, not mine), but if you put in something in the URL field, it shows that instead of your e-mail addy…