Xmas for everyone!
Another end-of-year, another minicontroversy over what to yell at each other to soothe away our stress.
I'll admit I'm no fan of Xmastime. Obligations, in general, are not my bag, and feeling obligated to go do things that I'm not normally going to do (shopping, taking time off work to see people, etc.) is stressful, which I don't like, especially when the reason for it anyway is ultimately 'because everyone else is doing it.'
It's the same for other holidays, if you scroll down to my first post you'll see that Thanksgiving wasn't much fun for me either. The only holidays I can truly say I look forward to would have to be the 4th of July, and that's mostly because it happens to be my birthday and I can usually find a party or BBQ or something to co-opt into my celebration, and Bloomsday.
Enough about me. Tomorrow's Northwestern prints two letters to the editor regarding this issue. One references Hitler. The other suggests that those complaining about "Merry Christmas" go volunteer at a worthwhile charity instead of complaining that people say "Merry Christmas".
Ahem.
[I don't know how far the powers that be will let me get away with talking about work, which with the exception of sleeping is probably the largest aggregate chunk of my life, unfortunately. In this kind of situation (ie. one where grey areas are large and boundaries poorly defined), I push the limits of what I think I can get away with:]
In these two letters, I again note, a reference is made to Hitler, and a suggestion is made that people complaining about this issue do something worthwhile with their time.
Incidentally, if you haven't noticed I like using the notation 'Xmas' to refer to the season. 'X' is a representation of the Greek letter Chi, which is the first letter in the word 'Christos', in romanized lettering roughly 'Xpirtoc'. 'Christos' means 'Christ' or in English 'Anointed', the word in 'Jesus Christ' that does not have anything to do with a certain religious figure's actual name, which was probably something like Jeshua ben Joseph. Dec. 25 is not in fact the known birthdate of this figure, that date having a roughly 1/365.25 chance of being correct. The date was likely chosen by the Christian Church in the 4th century CE in response to the nonchristian rituals and feasts also held around that time of year, which stemmed from celebrations of the Winter Solstice, a date that was finalized around 4 billion years ago, or whenever it was that the Earth's axis tilt and day length stabilized, and probably was one of the earliest festivals celebrated anywhere by anyone. It was not a popular Mass for centuries, only beginning to gain widespread popularity in the last few hundred years, around which time it also began to become commercialized. Many Christian denominations, particularly very conservative ones, do not celebrate it.
And X also has, I'm told, some sleazy connotations.
Personally I always thought Festivus sounded like a pretty good time, too.
-a
I'll admit I'm no fan of Xmastime. Obligations, in general, are not my bag, and feeling obligated to go do things that I'm not normally going to do (shopping, taking time off work to see people, etc.) is stressful, which I don't like, especially when the reason for it anyway is ultimately 'because everyone else is doing it.'
It's the same for other holidays, if you scroll down to my first post you'll see that Thanksgiving wasn't much fun for me either. The only holidays I can truly say I look forward to would have to be the 4th of July, and that's mostly because it happens to be my birthday and I can usually find a party or BBQ or something to co-opt into my celebration, and Bloomsday.
Enough about me. Tomorrow's Northwestern prints two letters to the editor regarding this issue. One references Hitler. The other suggests that those complaining about "Merry Christmas" go volunteer at a worthwhile charity instead of complaining that people say "Merry Christmas".
Ahem.
[I don't know how far the powers that be will let me get away with talking about work, which with the exception of sleeping is probably the largest aggregate chunk of my life, unfortunately. In this kind of situation (ie. one where grey areas are large and boundaries poorly defined), I push the limits of what I think I can get away with:]
In these two letters, I again note, a reference is made to Hitler, and a suggestion is made that people complaining about this issue do something worthwhile with their time.
Incidentally, if you haven't noticed I like using the notation 'Xmas' to refer to the season. 'X' is a representation of the Greek letter Chi, which is the first letter in the word 'Christos', in romanized lettering roughly 'Xpirtoc'. 'Christos' means 'Christ' or in English 'Anointed', the word in 'Jesus Christ' that does not have anything to do with a certain religious figure's actual name, which was probably something like Jeshua ben Joseph. Dec. 25 is not in fact the known birthdate of this figure, that date having a roughly 1/365.25 chance of being correct. The date was likely chosen by the Christian Church in the 4th century CE in response to the nonchristian rituals and feasts also held around that time of year, which stemmed from celebrations of the Winter Solstice, a date that was finalized around 4 billion years ago, or whenever it was that the Earth's axis tilt and day length stabilized, and probably was one of the earliest festivals celebrated anywhere by anyone. It was not a popular Mass for centuries, only beginning to gain widespread popularity in the last few hundred years, around which time it also began to become commercialized. Many Christian denominations, particularly very conservative ones, do not celebrate it.
And X also has, I'm told, some sleazy connotations.
Personally I always thought Festivus sounded like a pretty good time, too.
-a
posted by BlackAndy at 4:46 PM
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