Merry Holiday!

In five short days, we will celebrate the Holiday Formerly Known As... well, if I say it, I risk offending somebody, so henceforth I'll just call it "The Holiday."

Anyway, The Holiday has arrived so quickly this year! It seems like just yesterday that we- wait a minute! What am I doing? It's CHRISTMAS, you sonsofbitches! It has always been CHRISTMAS, and it will always be CHRISTMAS! What's going on here?!

I'm a Texan and a Christian, dammit, and I'll be damned if I allow some bleeding-heart Yankee liberal pinko communist Muslim Jew to keep me from celebrating my dear Santa Claus and slaughtering fir trees and going into severe debt to buy my sister an iPod!

You bastards cannot take this from me! I was raised in the church, and no Vermont ACLU greenie is going to stop me from spending hundreds of dollars at NorthPark Mall and fighting for parking spaces and getting completely plowed at CHRISTMAS parties!

What's next? Where will the PC-ness stop? Are they going to keep us from memorializing our swimming pools and barbecue pits next Memorial Day?? Are they going to strip us of the true meaning of Easter next year (good luck banning the Easter Bunny, idiots)?

Besides, why the sudden uproar over CHRISTMAS? Why this year, and not last year? I don't understand why this is happening now.

I might have understood if CHRISTMAS was banned in 2001, when-in the aftermath of 9/11- people were not thinking clearly and everything we previously knew as truth had to somehow change (including, but not limited to, the freedom to pack nose hair scissors in your carry-on luggage). Maaaaaybe you could have pulled this stunt that year.

Or perhaps the commies could have outlawed CHRISTMAS the year when Ernest Saves Christmas was released. A movie that bad has to prompt some kind of change, and that was as good a reason as any. We could have lived with it back then...

But not now!!

If SteinMart is having a sale in December, just who is aggrieved if they call it a "CHRISTMAS SALE"? If you practice Wicca, and therefore deny the existence of Jesus in order to worship fairies and field mice, will you forgo purchasing that heavily discounted Ralph Lauren sweater (up to 70% off!) just because the sign says "CHRISTMAS"?!

I bet not.

If you are a polytheistic Buddhist or Hindu living in Dallas today, are you going to pass up the "10 for $10 half-gallon of Skim Milk" at Kroger's CHRISTMAS SALE? Like hell you are!

Hey Buddhists and Hindus, if you choose to worship cows and six-legged elephants and eight-armed goddesses, that's fine with me, but when you wake in the morning you've got to realize that you might be in the minority with those deity choices, and the word "CHRISTMAS" should not be on the top of your List of Things to Worry About.

(personally, I'd be concerned with the possibility of being reincarnated as a marmot in my next life, but hey, that's just me)

So you say you practice Islam or Judaism, and you accept the existence of Jesus Christ, but you struggle with the whole "son of God" thing?? That's ok. But do you honestly feel snubbed when you hear people talking about CHRISTMAS??

Look Jews, I eat bagels all the time. I occasionally read the New York Times. And, while I don't particularly think Woody Allen is very entertaining, I do think Mel Brooks and Seinfeld are hilarious. You don't see me complaining about that stuff do you??

And Muslims, I enjoy throwing rocks at Israeli tanks as much as the next guy, and I'll have you know that my sister Rebekah consumes close to five pounds of olives a day; and if that isn't keeping your 18th-century economies going, I don't know what is (lord knows strapping a bomb to your chest and blowing up restaurants isn't really boosting your GNP!).

So why must you attempt to ban our CHRISTMAS?! Just lay off, ok?

You'll never take CHRISTMAS from us!

And if you ever did, we'll still never forget the reason for the season. ("if that fat woman grabs the last XBox 360, I'm tackling her from behind!! What do you mean, no rain checks? A-hole!! Why do I have to buy something for my co-workers, I don't even like them!! I hate the holidays...)