Christmas

"Christmas time is here," the chorus sings as A Charlie Brown Christmas welcomes, for me, the holiday season. I've always loved the Christmas holidays. I've always loved the festivity. Even more as I have learned about it's pagan origins, which are no secret today. The fact that today's Christian holidays are a mish-mash result of a variety of cultural contributions, only serves to endear the holiday to me even more. For in spite of ancient conquerors' attempt to crush pagan religions by adapting their rituals and painting them Christian, they have only served to perpetuate pagan symbolism and turn it into an American institution. I'll bet that the opening celebrations at Stonehenge included a druid who looked just like Santa Claus, and a tree, and holly, and...

Of course, the druids may have included actual human sacrifice, which we have replaced with patronage of places like Wal-Mart, where we sacrifice our values instead. But no matter, for Wal-Mart will never have my soul, and no matter how much merchandising assaults my senses and offends my sensibilities, I will always love the holidays.