A lively debate - It's Christmas Already?!

...jesus christ...

How can you hate this guy? He's adorable.

What? You hate Jesus or something?

No, Fundamentalist Christian Caricature whom I invented for the sake of this Christmas related blog post, it's not that. Well, maybe it's a little bit that. The character of Jesus Christ is probably just an amalgam of early religious figures sprinkled with a few mythological characters. But I can't really fault him for having a holiday; he's pretty popular. Although it is a bit suspicious that Christians appropriated non-denominational winter solstice celebrations for their messiah's birthday. Furthermore, his birthday, according to many scholarly accounts, probably wasn't even in December, if he had a birthday at all. He's probably not real, is what I'm saying.  

What's that? I couldn't hear you over the Hellfires. So it must be Santa. Look at his red suit, his jolly demeanor, his magical reindeer. Look at them.

I'm looking. But isn't the modern conception of Santa Claus just another amalgamation of folklore, myth, and (mostly) product placement? What does Santa have to do with Jesus anyway?

Jesus got presents. Santa gives presents. Boom.

Boom?

Boom.

But modern Christmas has become so entrenched in the idea of obligatory shopping and gift-giving, often with a direct correspondence between the price and quality of a gift (or so we're led to believe...BY CORPORATE AMERICA!), that Christmas, henceforth shortened to Xmas, is becoming more about presents and consumption than it ever was about any religious or spiritual source material. Besides, Jesus was the guy who preached simplicity and non-consumption, how does this mesh?  

You're doing it wrong, then. It's about going to Church with your family, and hearing about Jesus. Sometimes you get to watch your kids act in the Nativity play. 

  ...and what do you do the morning after church?  

We open presents, dummy.

Would your Christmas celebration be any different without presents?
 
Besides the lack of presents? It shouldn't be too different, but...I wouldn't need to shop, spend hundreds of dollars on presents, get up in the middle of the night to pretend that a man benevolently broke into our house, or put on the itchy beard and suit.

See? That sounds way better. You still get to spend quality time with your family, have a nice meal, watch an Xmas special on TV, and you get to sleep in on the 25th.  

But what about the presents? The joy in a family member's face when they open their new eBible...it's priceless. 

  I dunno, just give them an ipod some other time. My point is that we don't need a social convention to tell us that, once a year, 75 percent of the country needs to buy and give presents, all at the same time. It bugs me.  

You are a tool of Satan. Get out of my house.
 
fin.