"Christmas is a necessity. There has to be at least one day of the year to remind us that we're here for something else besides ourselves."
~Eric Sevareid
I have been waiting a long time for this rant. Three months from today will be Christmas Eve. I love Christmas Eve, perhaps more than I love Christmas Day! Alan and I have some traditions, all our own, that I look forward to all year! First we get up and have a light breakfast, then he leaves to finish up his last minute holiday shopping. Actually, it's not so much getting that last minute shopping done, so much as Alan Alone Time. LOL. It's fine, he more than deserves it. He works really hard, and he spoils me rotten, so how could I begrudge him some alone time?
I couldn't!
Last year we had presents under the tree. And the decorations looked lovely. But I felt NO spirit at all. I wasn't the least bit interested, even though I tried really hard to pull myself into the joys that surrounded me. Alan wasn't much in the mood either. You see, just about ten days before Christmas last year, the Sandy Hook Elementary school shooting happened. In the days that followed, the country could have come together as one, and to a good degree it did, except for the powers that be at the NRA! Why one interest group holds more power then the whole of the American people, I will never understand, but there it was... December 21st... 2012... and Wayne LaPierre vowing to do nothing to change gun policies to make things safer for our children, or for the person next to us. On Christmas Eve, instead of finishing up my own last minute joys, like baking cookies, or phoning friends to wish them a merry holiday, I spent my time crying for those lost children, and worrying about whether Alan was safe out in the world.
I hate being afraid.
It pisses me off.
So, the Sandy Hook shooting took place on December 14th of last year, on December 17th of last year I saw the above item, Old Carbine Tequila, for sale at Costco! Still on the shelf, still prominently displayed! Because nothing says MERRY CHRISTMAS like a shotgun shaped Tequila bottle, with a couple of free shot glasses included! Guns and Alcohol. Don't it go down smooooooooth? Goddammit! I wasn't over grieving for those the little ones, or the brave adults lost at Sandy Hook, before I saw that ridiculous Christmas gift idea in the aisle at Costco, and my tears turned to anger. With grieving, you have anger, it's built in. It's almost to be expected, but I couldn't believe Costco couldn't see how completely tacky that particular items was! Then, a few days later, December 21st came, and along with it, that stupid NRA press conference, vowing to do NOTHING! No, worse, vowing to fight any attempt to make things safer!
:::::::SILENCE::::::
Here we sit, almost a year later, and still nothing has been done.
Political JackASS Bill O'Reilly loves to falsely claim there is a "war on Christmas." How dare people wish someone a "Happy Holiday" rather than "MERRY CHRISTMAS!" Year, after year, the same exact bullshit! With nothing to back it up! His ire has nothing to do with God! It has everything to do with firing up his audience, the ones who gave up thinking for themselves a long time ago. The cowards who need a radio program to tell them how to feel. Money. Greed. Ratings is the King. If Bill O'Reilly were genuinely offended by the lack of Christmas, it wouldn't be about a greeting, it would be about making sure that NO child is ever killed 10 days before Christmas... or at any time... ever again... because of the worshiping of a false idol such as the gun.
When a weapon is held in higher regard than human life... it has become a false idol.
Period.
So, is there a war on Christmas? You bet there is! To win it, you have to put your weapon down, and think about your fellow man!
And by the way, Christmas isn't over commercialized. It is EXACTLY AS COMMERCIALIZED AS YOU CHOOSE TO MAKE IT! YOU CONTROL WHAT YOU PURCHASE, SO STOP SPREADING THAT CRAP!
Happy Holidays To You And Yours! I kinda dig the Holiday Tree.. don't you? :)
“Nor is it the spirit of those Christians - alas, they are many - whose ambition in life seems limited to building a nice middle-class Christian home, and making nice middle-class Christian friends, and bringing up their children in nice middle-class Christian ways, and who leave the sub-middle-class sections of the community, Christian and non-Christian, to get on by themselves.
The Christmas spirit does not shine out in the Christian snob. For the Christmas spirit is the spirit of those who, like their Master, live their whole lives on the principle of making themselves poor - spending and being spent - to enrich their fellowmen, giving time, trouble, care and concern to do good to others - and not just their own friends - in whatever way there seems need.”
~J.I. Packer, Knowing God
Mood: Reflective/Sad
~Me :)
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