Christmas On Fire

Here's another less-than-the-usual-sentimental-claptrap Christmas song. A lot like Christmas itself, in several ways. A poor, filthy thing that passes up a good opportunity to redeem itself. 

Christmas, as it is practiced today, is such a bullshit story. The winter solstice has been the preeminent holiday for the entire world for at least 20,000 years. Those ancient ancestors of ours didn't know much, but they knew enough to pinpoint the four most important days of the year and mark them as they passed. The two solstices; the two equinoxes. Another year down the shit-hole, boys and girls! The winter solstice was the most important of the four. The days had been getting shorter for months, and those ignorant cave-men were such a superstitious lot that they were not yet certain, in any given year, that the sun wouldn't just keep on along it's merry way to elsewhere. Let's remind the sun of its duties! Let's make some noise, and a fire, and burn alive some miscreants and some captives, and let's coax the sun into not forgetting us. Please, great mystery of life, let the days start to get longer, as they always have, to give us at least a forlorn hope of surviving for another year.

By about 10,000 years ago there were holidays with religious overtones set on or about the winter solstice. Those were the ancient fertility cults that arose around the beginnings of agriculture and animal husbandry. Thereafter, it was common for any new religion to put their holiday around that date. A new God? Let's put his birthday here. The Christians, about a century since everyone had forgotten what month, or even what time of year, Joshua, if he ever really existed, was born, decided to put his birthday there as well. With his new name, Jesus, and his new title, Christ. So we're stuck with Christmas, whether we like it or not.

Ah, I'm just being cranky. I actually enjoy Christmas, although in a way that is entirely secular. I'll use the name, "Christmas," as a convenience, because that's what everyone recognizes. You can fill in the blanks however you wish, but for me it's about the tree that represents the "evergreen" friends, the one's who stick with you through thick and thin, and it's about expressing gratitude to that group of important family and friends who had your back last year, the team that helped you make it to another New Year.

Thanks team! You know who you are. (Although to my knowledge, no one on my team reads this blog.)