My X-mas story.

Let me make this as short and sweet as I can. I grew up in a family that did not celebrate X-mas. I was picked on for this most of my young life, treated like a total outcast. When I was young, this treatment disturbed me. I would see all the presents the other kids would get and the green eyed monster would well up within me. I wanted to be like the other kids, I really wanted to fit in, more than anything though, I wanted the teasing and name calling to stop. My god, even my teachers would tell me how strange my family was for not celebrating X-mas, which just made me feel more displaced from my peers.
That story, however was many, many years ago. I am an adult now, at least in a physical sense, and, you know, I still don't celebrate X-mas. I do not have to go and buy gifts for everyone because it is a holiday. That is not to say that I don't by my friends and loved ones gifts, I just don't let a holiday tell me when I should purchase things. I do not expect, nor do I want presents from people either, if we are that close you can buy me a couple beers or a fifth of whiskey any time of the years and we will make our own holiday. Most importantly, I do not have to get together with family, especially extended family and try to be nice to them. The simple fact is, while I really like my immediate family, if three quarters of my relative base were sucked into a black hole which spat them out into the burning center of the Sun, it would hardly affect my life. just because you share some slight genetic similarity to someone, does not mean you have to like them. Show me that part of the rule book and I will eat the poncho I bought in Tijuana seven years ago. I have shared my dislike for X-mas with several people and also my "drink whiskey and play video games agenda" and I have found that, since we are all grown up, most people are extremely jealous of my break from this corporate/religious holy, bullshit day. Some of the same people that would have ridiculed me as a child, now wish they could join in the Zen of my anti-X-mas ways, for, when all others are stressed and suicidal, I am simply pissed that I can't buy more beer and will have to wait for another day but, no big deal, I have nothing to do today but type and scratch itches that you can't scratch in front of your Grandma, both physically and metaphorically.

As a parting thought: I usually take a holiday blog as an opportunity to rip it apart and show you the history of how it was destroyed by some pious king or emperor. Well, X-mas is no different, so here goes.
I call it X-mas, most call it Christmas, i prefer the "X", because this day has about as much to do with Jesus as Presidents day. This is supposedly the day Christians celebrate the birth of Christ but if there were three wise men crossing a Middle Eastern desert on camel back, I will regurgitate the earlier mentioned poncho and re-eat it. Like so many "Christian", holidays, Christmas is just another way of covering up another Pagan festival. In this case, most likely blending the time of year in with the Roman holiday Saturnalia and the Winter Solstice celebration which fell on December 25th according to the Julian Calender. Saturnalia was a week long celebration of the roman god Saturn that ran from December 17th to the 23rd. It was a time of getting away from formal rules, a festival in which anything goes. Feasting, dancing, public drunkenness and nudity, of course what kind of Roman festival would be complete with out a few orgies? There were those too. Then we have Scandinavian Yule, the log burnt to honor Thor, the decorating of the tree, the mistletoe, holly ant wreaths, sounds a lot like X-mas if you take out Thor and pop in the X. I believe of all the holidays that piss me off, this fat, screaming lie is among the worst. If it wasn't for Constantine and Charlemagne and their push to bury the past and control people through religion, you could all be enjoying a naked day off instead of hating the socks you got from Aunt Clemintine.