War on Christmas | Day 8: Lascivious Crooners

Duets are typically not worth the time it takes to hit the skip button. Neither old standards suitable for AM radio, nor generally any music by Zooey Deschanel, much as I love looking at her when she doesn't have bangs.



However, I have a soft spot in my head heart for "Baby, It's Cold Outside." It's cute, it's boppy but not poppy, it's got snow and drinking and sexy music, disobeying parental and societal regulations … it's basically the Footloose of Christmas season songs.

However, if the woman singing the "Mouse" lines can't manage to be flirtatious enough to work with the "Wolf" singer, she just comes off kind of earnestly fearful of being trapped in a snowstorm and romantically assaulted. This is not something we should be okay with in an oft-covered easy listening hit.

I can't find any mention of it, so my ear is obviously off on this one, but I would swear at work I have been hearing a Frank Sinatra version of this song. It's definitely not, maybe another Rat Packer or emulator, but it doesn't particularly matter to this discussion because the important issue is that–best I can tell–this version was sung as a solo.

And not "guy sings the main part, chorus/random voice quietly peeps out the back line," no. This "Frank" sings the Wolf lines only, and unless the treble has been completely stripped from the track, there is no Mouse singer. Yes, it's just some guy monologuing to some woman who cannot voice her opinions, cajoling and berating her, rapaciously grasping at her presence.

Christmas should never be associated with an adjective like "date-rape-y."

War on Christmas | Day 7: Dark Wizards Attack Muggle Homes

Pardon my Grinchery on this, the second night of Chanukah. Chalk it up to an overdose of latkes if you will.

Does any one else recall a Patronus being present at the birth of Christ?


Actually, what's up with religion in Harry Potter? There certainly seems to be Christmas-type celebrations, but everything seems pretty secular. I guess performing miracles and resurrecting seem less impressive when any dick kid or his parents can do it just because they love enough.

War On Christmas | Day 6: Life Day

The evil Galactic Empire waged war on the originally triennial Wookie celebration of Life Day long before the War on Christmas was cool. Held around the 31st of Welona by the Tepani Standard Calendar, Life Day was a pivotal holiday for the Wookie race, and later the Rebellion, despite it being A) an amalgam of both Thanksgiving and Christmas, and B) just incredibly awful on all counts except for the Boba Fett cartoon, Life Day has much to teach us in terms of tradition.

Holiday Traditions I Learned From Wookie Life Day:

• Even if you spend the rest of the year naked, you dress up for special occasions. It shows respect for the day and those around you, and it's a chance to show off how fancy you can be.

"Itchy" Atichuk: the original Grumpy Cat.

• Everyone has a creepy old grandpa being dirty when he thinks no one is looking. Or even when they are and he just doesn't care. And as racist as he is, he's watching some decidedly off-species porn dancing videos.

• Getting so blitzed with your family you all end up singing together. In space.

• Carrie Fisher getting high on pain killers.

"Did nobody else bother to read their contracts?"

• Your one uncle who smartly doesn't show up…

• … but then phones it in and gets lectured for the next 30 years until someone worse pops up.

• Chefs on T.V. always make dinner preparation seem way easier than it is

War on Christmas | Davy 5: The War on Chanukkah

If you want to disprove the war on Christmas as a legitimate worry, you need only ask where the atheists are who should be fighting against every other even remotely pagan religious ceremony within the month of December.

The war on Chanukah? That was called the story of Chanukah. Jews beat the crap out of a superior military force and were miraculously un-obliterated. Then, oil lamps burned with 800% fuel efficiency. There's your miracle.

The war on Kwanza? Try 500 years of racial oppression of the black man in Western culture.

Where's the battle to keep latkes out of our schools? Or the Solstice from being a nationally recognized day of "oh god oh god let's all party and fuck in case we die?

The answer is no one is attacking these holidays, because there is nothing to be feared from them. Frankly, the only thing antagonistic to these holidays, in this age, is Christmas in the first.

War on Christmas | Day 4: Crossing the Delaware

George Washington was a dick.

In World War I, French and Prussians sang carols from opposing trenches and played soccer in No Mans Land.

In WWII, Allied and German troops broke bread and refrained from battle for a single day.

For centuries in Europe, it remained custom to cease hostilities on the celebration of Christ's birth. In 1776, as celebrations wrapped up among Hessian troops in Trenton, NJ, General Washington snuck his force across the frozen river and attacked his enemy in deference to the spirit of delaying all military operations until the next morning.

It went well, but it was still a dick move, Georgie.

War on Christmas - Day 2: The Elf on the Shelf

This is by far the most terrifying Christmas "tradition" to which I have ever been privy, barring only perhaps my equally as recent education on the "Krumpus," Santa's devilish, puckish companion who would beat naughty children and pluck the worst of the bunch from their homes to carry off in his sac to sell into slavery, whilst the benevolent Santa left treats for the goodly of the group.

No, this is by far worse. At lease the old Germanic folks knew the point of religion was to scare you into submission through idle threats. Sometimes they would even dress up and rattle through the streets on Christmas Eve to make a point of it. It was open hostility. It was real and visceral, and you could fight the demon but you would lose because his mission was sanctioned. The Krumpus was a foe you could wrap your mind around, a boogieman.

The Elf on the Shelf is the James fucking Bond of Christmas espionage. He's a mindfuck, wrapped in a Rambo, wrapped up in red felt and plastic.

The "tradition" of the Elf was started in 2005, and flows as thus:

1. You buy the Elf and give him a name. Ignore whatever life he may previously have had. This is slavery. You are his life now, and he will know it.

2. The Elf receives his magic. Once named, the Elf is endowed with the power to fly back the North Pole every night to report a family's good and bad deeds to Santa for auditing. He is like a magical IRS agent.

3. When he returns just before the family wakes up, he hides in a different location about the house. Ostensibly, parents move the doll. Children are then to search the house for their maniacal foe. He is a terror, an unholy practitioner and agent of the dark arts, tasked by his True Master with reporting the misdeeds of others. He is a professional stoolie.

4. Children shit their pants in fear.

5. The Elf cannot be touched. This is the kicker: his magic is said to vanish if you ever touch the Elf. His mission cannot be foiled. Should his real loyalties to that fat Turk Khris Kringle be revealed, one cannot eliminate him for fear of reprisal. Santa will know that his double-oh has been compromised. The only compensation is that the Elf will be compelled to report on the good actions he witnesses and any special requests made to him by the children as a "Christmas Wish."

6. He watches you all month, then disappears until he is pressed into servitude next year. Dobby doesn't get a freakin sock when this is all done, oh no. After December 25th, your little Elf "flies back to Santa" until he's needed next year. That means the "farm upstate" if a family of raccoons makes it into your attic some time in the next year.

This is terrifying. It's all psychological torment, without any of the fun of beating children or preparing to sneak-attack the Krumpus with your friends, only to end of putting Papa in the hospital with minor lacerations and a weak concussion. This Elf has diplomatic immunity and you can't touch him, even though he's a treacherous little shit your parents brought home.

Oh, and until they introduced arying skin colors and put lipstick on some last year, the way you made one a girl was by slapping an extra $14.95 skirt on the boy version. I'm as progressive as a lesbian in a Dutch bakery full of biracial libertarian atheists, but explaining transsexualism to a 5 year old is not the kind of thing I want slapped on my arrest history.

In Which I Declare War on Christmas

Well, it's December 4th, and that means two things:


1. If my copy of the Dark Knight Trilogy doesn't arrive today, I'm going to be pissed at Amazon. And

2. I've already heard about the "War" on Christmas enough since before Thanksgiving that I feel compelled to put down my Christmas playlist and beloved Santa hat to say something moderate but eloquent enough that it tempers detraction.


Well fuck that. I'm tired and it's old hat and it's the cool thing to do at this point. Call me a hipster, but I'm done pretending like I'm defending moderation for any reason other than showing off how smart I am in front of stupid, pretentious assholes on the internet (a futile endeavor).

I hereby declare, even ironically, even if it's the next-level hipster thing to do, war against Christmas. I swear to Satan and un-God and whoever to hereby perpetuate a wonderful, happy celebration of love and good will completely devoid of non-secular symbolism and meaning, owing in large part to the glorified Valentine's Day that is Japanese Christmas, or the toys and Krumpus of the Dutch and Germanic lands.

I also declare war on Switzerland, because they've gotten away with this neutrality thing for far too long.

I declare war on Poland, because why the fuck not.

I declare jihad against any mention of the word "Hobbit" between now and whenever Peter Jackson decides his next halfling needs to be a Jawa.

And why the hell not, let's declare war on Bill O'Reilly. Maybe it'll give him something to talk about.

And lets not forget to declare war on James T. Kirk and the Federation of Planets,
as Gretchen Carlson is apparently also Kahn Noonien Singh.

On Happy Holidays

I'd fins the concept of a "War on Christmas" absolutely hilarious if it didn't empower stupid people and, frankly, certain high-profile people with whom I strongly disagree on most matters.

The arguments are old:

1. December contains several holidays for Americans including Kwanzaa, a holiday made exclusively for African-Americans in the early twentieth century and rarely celebrated outside the States. And as a lapsed half-Jew, I can assure you that Chanukkah was never intended to be a big holiday. It's more like Easter, which incidentally should really be more important than Christmas since it's when Jesus rose from the fucking grave, not got splatted out his mother's extra-tight verjay.
   
2. Separation of Church and State means one religion cannot be promoted over an other, and should ideally be excluded from practical governmental operation.
3. "Holiday" comes from the Old English haligdæg, meaning literally "holy day," just in case the camouflaged i/y sound fooled you but linguistic etymology makes sense.
4. Jesus was born at like the end of April and the celebration of this birth was moved by truthfully agnostic Roman imperials to coincide with the old holiday of Saturnalia and usurp its Pagan popularity.

To be honest, I'm tired of fighting the War Against The War On Christmas, so I'll just start making a new point:

People who think there is actually any type of antagonism to the well being of Christmas are the same people who think that gay marriage somehow affects the relationships of unrelated straight people miles away. Christmas is in fine shape. It is by far the most popular December holiday, even amongst non-Christians. Its traditional values are actually somber and reflective and quite frankly so not-fun that the only people who have it right are the Amish, and they don't celebrate anything at all. The Japanese don't even really involve Jesus, because the spirit of love and giving is enough to sustain an entire holiday on it's own.

More to the point, Christmas begins the moment Thanksgiving does. It's not even afterwards, anymore. We eat Thanksgiving dinner in anticipation of being able to start Christmas immediately after. We watch Santas parade down Main Street in the Macy's Day Consumerism Parade. We completely ignore everything else in our lives to wake up at the ass crack of dawn and buy the fuck out of clothing and high-end electronics for somebody and start The Holiday Spirit right then and there.

I went to Walmart on December 10th and there was a person and an old shopping cart in the closest parking space, which was pretty damned far away. Even though it wasn't hers, this woman moved the cart so I could get into the space. As I got out of the car I thanked her for being so courteous, and her response was, "Oh, it's nothing … it is Christmas."

No, no it wasn't, but God bless that kind of attitude around this time o-

Hold on.

This woman was actually implying she wouldn't move a fucking shopping cart that was also in her own way unless it was Christmas time? If only she herself were inconvenienced she would have walked around this regardless of whether it was a problem for someone else? What a fucking bitch.


So no. No I do not believe there is a war on Christmas. I believe their is a consumer-driven conspiracy to lengthen Christmas as long as possible. Despite every complaint I hear about stores putting Christmas decorations out earlier and earlier, before Halloween now, I don't see any of you baby Jesus humping dollar sign moo cows putting your wallets back in your pockets.

There is no war on Christmas. Christmas spreads farther and wider than any holiday, infecting everything it touches with non-denominational joy and good will, making every asshole in existence a nicer, decent human being if only for a month or so. Christmas will not fade or be glossed over.

After all, you will never hear children singing "It's be-ginning to look a lot like Easter."















Also, there's no sexy angle associated with Easter, save Muscly Bondage Jesus.