Holiday hater?

Merry Christmas.

You were just wished a merry Christmas by an atheist.

This atheist loves Christmas. See a conflict? I do not. We atheists don’t reject all of the Bible. There are parts of the Bible that I, for one, enjoy quite a bit, like the part about going into the woods and choosing a tree to drag into your home and decorate with astrological symbols. Where in the Bible is that again? Was that the gospel according to Saint Nick?

My favorite Christmas tradition is when the rich folks go wild with the lights and decorations and then let us poor folks come look at their houses. My daughter saw a nativity on one of these viewings, but baby Jesus hadn’t been placed in it yet.

“Daddy, who are those two ladies, and why is that nest empty?”

“Honey, that’s Mary and Josephine, and the nest is empty because it’s hard to find a white baby in the Middle East.”

I like celebrating with all of my friends and neighbors, and since Sacramento is so wonderfully diverse, that means celebrating all of the holidays, including a few we made up. Diwali is a great excuse to eat Indian food and watch some Bollywood flicks. Ramadan is fun to celebrate: I skip the fasting-all-day part, but I’m totally down for the nighttime food and visiting with family and friends. Hanukkah is when we sing along with Adam Sandler. Conspiracy theorists celebrate their new holiday, September 11. I participate by watching a great documentary, like The Matrix.

Anyway, say “merry Christmas” if you like. Nobody’s stopping you. If a store says “Happy holidays,” thereby wishing: 1. Christians a merry Christmas; 2. Jews a happy Hanukkah; 3. Muslims a solemn Ramadan; 4. beautiful idealists a happy Kwanzaa; and 5. Hindus a festive Diwali in the most efficient way, how on Earth could you find a problem with this?

I’m much more concerned with Halloween being called “Harvest Festival”! WTF? No. Keep Satan in Halloween!

I amuse myself by seeing how satisfied many Christians become with my wishing them yuletide greetings. If you don’t get this, you may want to research “yule.” Yule be surprised. (I celebrate Bad Pun Day every day.)

Rest assured, I will not insist that stores put up “Happy cold, noisy, crappy music, consumer-hell season!” to earn my business. I’ll just assume that this is one of the sentiments they intended to cover when they say “Happy holidays.”