Season's Greetings, Asshole

Posted by Seth Kramer on Wednesday, November 28th 2007 at 12:39am



The War on Christmas. Have you seen this shit? Every year somebody at Fox News decides to hock John Gibson's delusional book about how there's a big liberal conspiracy to destroy Christmas. Sort of like the Grinch who stole Congress.

Anyway I thought I'd own up to it. I'm the guy. I'm the guy who declared War on Christmas. It was 2003 and I sent out my "Merry Xmas" cards and all the sudden I get a call from a reactionary evangelical friend of mine who felt it inappropriate that I my cards had abbreviated Christmas as Xmas. Apparently the magic of the holiday season is diluted by this short form. I listened politely--okay politely for me--to a rant about how Xmas wasn't the same as Christmas and that the abbreviation seemed designed to remove the religiousity from the holiday.

Nevermind that Jesus, being born in the desert, was not in possession of a slowly dying conifer kept in suspended animation for the purpose of garishly decorating his home. Nevermind the strange custom of putting gifts into oversized footware, or leaving treats for a long-deceased Turkish bishop who has a date to break and enter into your home. No sir, the indignity that would not be suffered was an abbreviation. That just ruined the whole spirit of the matter.

From this point on I took pains to send "Christmas" cards to this guy that made no mention of the religious origins of the holiday so that every year I could hear fresh bitches about how I was somehow undermining the whole shebang with my simple little cards. One year I even chose not to send a card to this fellow. He then bitched about how I didn't seem to even acknowledge the holiday.

So there you have it. That's my confession. I'm the guy who declared war on Christmas. We will take no prisoners. We shall fight on the beaches. We shall fight on the landing grounds. We shall fight in the fields and in the streets. We shall fight in the hills. We shall never surrender.

I am not an unreasonable man. Perhaps we can declare a truce. These are my conditions: (1) Deal with me saying Happy Holidays, or Seasons Greetings, or the next card you get will say "Happy Fucking Whatever". (2) Quit your bitching. They're my cards and I'll put whatever the hell I want on them, and as long as I've got the postage you'll deal with it. (3) For a guy who seems to care so much about this stuff you've never once sent me a card, not just a christmas card, any card, hell send me a happy kwanzaa card for my birthday for crying out loud you whiny son-of-a-bitch. (4) Start worrying about stuff that matters instead of semantic bullshit.

Thanks,

Seth Kramer
Proprietor of SethKramer.com and all around Grinch.

Oh by the way Happy/Merry Hanukkah/Kwanzaa/Christmas/New Year/Boxing Day/Three Kings Day/Winter Solstice/St. Nicholas Day/Omisoka/Eid'ul-Adha/etc.