Merry Christmas
Disclaimer: If you believe in Santa Claus, stop reading.
The night is alive with flickering lights. People are scrambling to and fro. Cars have trees on top of them and we're lying to children. Hurricane season? Nope. It's Christmas. Amid all the holiday songs and the religious persecution lawsuits, today we take a few minutes to say thanks before tearing open our presents and try not to complain as much when we don't get what we want cause we'd look more spoiled than Paris Hilton. It's the time of year when we convince our kids that the laws of space, time and physics don't apply. We teach them that even though the song says you "have to be good cause there's a list", it really doesn't matter, you're getting toys anyway. We spend every other day of the year teaching children not to lie and then, as an entire society, lie our faces off repeatedly about a jolly fat man and flying mammals. We eat more than we should, spend more than we have and smile even though in the back of our minds we know we're digging ourselves a financial grave on a minute by minute basis.
Turn on the radio, oh, it's the rock stars of the 1980's singing about how people in Africa don't know it's Christmas. Well of course they don't, most of them don't celebrate Christmas. We pretend to be sad that they're starving, until we have to get the roast out of the oven and onto the table where we've set enough food to feed the entire town even though there's only four people having dinner.
Aside from seeing family and friends and buying them things because you HAVE too, Christmas was once about the birth of a man they said was the son of God. But now, Christmas is about Jesus as much as St. Patrick's Day is about, well, St. Patrick. 2000 years ago a child was born in a manger and because of this, we exchange presents and watch a story about a boy who wants a BB gun more than anything in the world cause it's on TV over and over and over and over.
We kiss strangers under a poisonous plant and we drink things that, hell, you wouldn't drink if you were dying in the desert. We decorate a pine tree in the living room and pray it won't burn the house down before the 25th. We smile at people a little more, then punch them in the face for the new popular toy of the year. And we're joyous. Not really, but we pretend.
On Christmas we act how we should act every day of the year. But we save it for one day. Maybe that's what makes it special. Maybe it's the one day of the year we realize our potential. It's the one day we are who we should be. Caring, kind, loving and giving. Then we thank our lucky stars that Islamic fanatics didn't bomb our cities over our "cross-worshipping" holiday.
Raise a glass of egg nog, kiss your loved ones and remember, sometime between today and a year from now, you'll probably have to explain why the kids at school say there's no Santa Claus, you'll have to plan gifts to look for at the last minute even though you swear next year you'll start early and you'll have a few birthdays and other holidays to stress you out. Deep breath, it's over for 2006. Merry Christmas all and to all, good night.
The night is alive with flickering lights. People are scrambling to and fro. Cars have trees on top of them and we're lying to children. Hurricane season? Nope. It's Christmas. Amid all the holiday songs and the religious persecution lawsuits, today we take a few minutes to say thanks before tearing open our presents and try not to complain as much when we don't get what we want cause we'd look more spoiled than Paris Hilton. It's the time of year when we convince our kids that the laws of space, time and physics don't apply. We teach them that even though the song says you "have to be good cause there's a list", it really doesn't matter, you're getting toys anyway. We spend every other day of the year teaching children not to lie and then, as an entire society, lie our faces off repeatedly about a jolly fat man and flying mammals. We eat more than we should, spend more than we have and smile even though in the back of our minds we know we're digging ourselves a financial grave on a minute by minute basis.
Turn on the radio, oh, it's the rock stars of the 1980's singing about how people in Africa don't know it's Christmas. Well of course they don't, most of them don't celebrate Christmas. We pretend to be sad that they're starving, until we have to get the roast out of the oven and onto the table where we've set enough food to feed the entire town even though there's only four people having dinner.
Aside from seeing family and friends and buying them things because you HAVE too, Christmas was once about the birth of a man they said was the son of God. But now, Christmas is about Jesus as much as St. Patrick's Day is about, well, St. Patrick. 2000 years ago a child was born in a manger and because of this, we exchange presents and watch a story about a boy who wants a BB gun more than anything in the world cause it's on TV over and over and over and over.
We kiss strangers under a poisonous plant and we drink things that, hell, you wouldn't drink if you were dying in the desert. We decorate a pine tree in the living room and pray it won't burn the house down before the 25th. We smile at people a little more, then punch them in the face for the new popular toy of the year. And we're joyous. Not really, but we pretend.
On Christmas we act how we should act every day of the year. But we save it for one day. Maybe that's what makes it special. Maybe it's the one day of the year we realize our potential. It's the one day we are who we should be. Caring, kind, loving and giving. Then we thank our lucky stars that Islamic fanatics didn't bomb our cities over our "cross-worshipping" holiday.
Raise a glass of egg nog, kiss your loved ones and remember, sometime between today and a year from now, you'll probably have to explain why the kids at school say there's no Santa Claus, you'll have to plan gifts to look for at the last minute even though you swear next year you'll start early and you'll have a few birthdays and other holidays to stress you out. Deep breath, it's over for 2006. Merry Christmas all and to all, good night.
posted by A Mad Man at 3:40 PM
1 Comments:
Oh how true. Hope you had a Merry Christmas anyway. :-)
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