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Hark the herald, angels sing; joy to the Burger King! It's Christmas time again folks and that means that it is my personal favorite time of the year. Ever since I was a boy, apart from my brief stint as a rabid and rather boring fundamentalist Christian Grinch, I loved everything about Christmas. Yes, even the parts that require hard work like cooking and wrapping presents. I still remember my mom, sister and I all hanging out together wrapping presents, telling jokes and watching Christmas comedy movies like Home Alone II, A Christmas Story and National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation (one of the most underrated Christmas movies ever made in my humble opinion). What a joyous time of year that was! We would wrap presents and laugh together for hours on end. Then it was time to cook and we always made the most wonderful scalloped potatoes drenched in heavy cream and Swiss cheese. I can see them bubbling now. As I write this on what was a very Merry Christmas Eve (my sister even visited us this year; we missed out on last year so it was really nice spending time with her again) I am also planning my cooking schedule for tomorrow. I will be making a nice beef roast, those bubbly scalloped potatoes, roasted corn, and garlic cheese bread. In case you have not noticed I love cheese. I already have some chocolate cherry cookies ready to go for when my mom comes over, and I will probably bake more cookies and pies tomorrow, along with a little homemade eggnog. So, you know, no big thing. Just the usual yuletide schedule. This year, in celebration of my favorite holiday, my gift to you is the origins of Christmas time and what it has meant to different cultures down through the ages. While it is certainly true that Christmas is not a Christian holiday, I also am sure to recognize the various contributions that Christians made to it, like making fruitcake more palatable, cutting out the whole slaves cleaning up their masters' barf thing (yes, that was actually a real job that Romans slaves had to do in ancient Rome, and you thought your job was bad) and discouraging random drunk carolers at ungodly hours. However, I cannot help but give the pagans their props as well. Paganism has been so demonized by modern conservative Christians that you would think it has had no influence on Christmas whatsoever, but nothing could be further from the truth. If anyone knew how to party, it was the pagans, and Christmas is still, to this very day, even with all the conservative chestnuts out there, a time for great joy and revelry. This comes from the ancient holiday of Saturnalia, which has been described by pagan historians as being like the movie "The Purge". There were no laws during Saturnalia and you could pretty much get away with anything you want. Gender bending sex was allowed and so were other vices like gluttony, hedonism and bad singing. While we have left a lot of the less savory parts of Saturnalia behind, gender bending sex is still widely available on the internet for free and country western stars everywhere release a new Christmas album every year to keep the bad singing thing alive and well. But Saturnalia is just one of the pagan traditions that Christmas is based on. There was also the pagan celebration of yule, which is where we get terms like "yule log and yuletide", which many modern day pagans, Wiccans are a good example, still celebrate today without even getting their houses burnt to the ground or thrown in rivers to drown this time around. Now that's what I call progress! So, this year I ask you all to appreciate Christmas for what it is: a combination of many different cultures coming together to exchange gifts, eat rich food and get a pretty good buzz going. If there is one thing that I can be apolitical about, it is this truly joyous day. Even the Christians of old refused to let Christmas die because they wanted to remember their ancestors. So let's not be Scrooges or Grinches this year. Happy holidays!
Hark the herald, angels sing; joy to the Burger King! It's Christmas time again folks and that means that it is my personal favorite time of the year. Ever since I was a boy, apart from my brief stint as a rabid and rather boring fundamentalist Christian Grinch, I loved everything about Christmas. Yes, even the parts that require hard work like cooking and wrapping presents. I still remember my mom, sister and I all hanging out together wrapping presents, telling jokes and watching Christmas comedy movies like Home Alone II, A Christmas Story and National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation (one of the most underrated Christmas movies ever made in my humble opinion). What a joyous time of year that was! We would wrap presents and laugh together for hours on end. Then it was time to cook and we always made the most wonderful scalloped potatoes drenched in heavy cream and Swiss cheese. I can see them bubbling now. As I write this on what was a very Merry Christmas Eve (my sister even visited us this year; we missed out on last year so it was really nice spending time with her again) I am also planning my cooking schedule for tomorrow. I will be making a nice beef roast, those bubbly scalloped potatoes, roasted corn, and garlic cheese bread. In case you have not noticed I love cheese. I already have some chocolate cherry cookies ready to go for when my mom comes over, and I will probably bake more cookies and pies tomorrow, along with a little homemade eggnog. So, you know, no big thing. Just the usual yuletide schedule. This year, in celebration of my favorite holiday, my gift to you is the origins of Christmas time and what it has meant to different cultures down through the ages. While it is certainly true that Christmas is not a Christian holiday, I also am sure to recognize the various contributions that Christians made to it, like making fruitcake more palatable, cutting out the whole slaves cleaning up their masters' barf thing (yes, that was actually a real job that Romans slaves had to do in ancient Rome, and you thought your job was bad) and discouraging random drunk carolers at ungodly hours. However, I cannot help but give the pagans their props as well. Paganism has been so demonized by modern conservative Christians that you would think it has had no influence on Christmas whatsoever, but nothing could be further from the truth. If anyone knew how to party, it was the pagans, and Christmas is still, to this very day, even with all the conservative chestnuts out there, a time for great joy and revelry. This comes from the ancient holiday of Saturnalia, which has been described by pagan historians as being like the movie "The Purge". There were no laws during Saturnalia and you could pretty much get away with anything you want. Gender bending sex was allowed and so were other vices like gluttony, hedonism and bad singing. While we have left a lot of the less savory parts of Saturnalia behind, gender bending sex is still widely available on the internet for free and country western stars everywhere release a new Christmas album every year to keep the bad singing thing alive and well. But Saturnalia is just one of the pagan traditions that Christmas is based on. There was also the pagan celebration of yule, which is where we get terms like "yule log and yuletide", which many modern day pagans, Wiccans are a good example, still celebrate today without even getting their houses burnt to the ground or thrown in rivers to drown this time around. Now that's what I call progress! So, this year I ask you all to appreciate Christmas for what it is: a combination of many different cultures coming together to exchange gifts, eat rich food and get a pretty good buzz going. If there is one thing that I can be apolitical about, it is this truly joyous day. Even the Christians of old refused to let Christmas die because they wanted to remember their ancestors. So let's not be Scrooges or Grinches this year. Happy holidays!