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"I'm dreaming of a white Christmas"...and shortbread and eggnog and...

by G. D. Maxwell

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"Remember, Christ, our SaviourWas born on Christmas day"

Umm... about that... as any fool will tell you, Christmas is all about celebrating the birth of Jesus. If Away In a Manger and Oh Little Town of Bethlehem — or any one of a dozen other carols reverberating around the walls of every single business establishment you walk in to from December 1 on — isn't enough to convince you of this simple fact, the word alone should suffice.

Christ·mas: [kris-muh s] n. December 25th, widely celebrated as the birth of Jesus Christ. From the Latin (Christ) being the nickname Jesus was given by his close friends who thought it was cool to call dudes by their last names + (Mass) being an almost incomprehensible Roman Catholic Eucharistic liturgy intoned in a dead language and designed to offer children forced to attend their first real glimpse of eternity.

Now there are those who question whether, in fact, Christ our Saviour was born on Christmas day. Ironically, many of them are True Believers. Their belief is based squarely on their faith in the unprovable, but their beef with Christmas being the day Christ was born is based squarely on them having way too much time on their hands and a misplaced belief there is enough factual material in the gospels to prove, well, anything. For the sake of simplicity, we'll generously call them pedantic and pretend they don't really exist.

Fact is, for the Christian world — and any other part of the world where shopping has been elevated above the barter system — Christmas is definitely the 25th of December and the birth of Christ is as good a reason as any to celebrate. And in those societies where gay marriage is finally legal, there is much mirth being made of the notion that Jesus was born of two fathers and one virginal mother. Go figure.

Still, doubts linger in an increasingly secular society. A recent New York Times poll found the birth of Jesus was mentioned by fewer people as the "True meaning of Christmas" than was, in order, getting presents, office parties, cookies, eggnog, donning gay apparel and taxing the electrical grid to decorate the house.

"To save us all from Satan's powerWhen we were gone astray"

Ironically, most atheists, while not believing in God, believe in Satan. I can't explain it; I only report it. The devil made me do it.

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