I don’t know why, but I’m feeling down on secular Christmas this year. Perhaps it’s residual bad-taste-in-mouth from the lame, trumped-up “War on Christmas” crap from a few years ago. Maybe it’s that the S.O. and I are agnostic. Maybe it’s that several of my coworkers are Jewish, Muslim, or Pagan and I’ve been feeling like secular Christmas–that commercialized hell of Santa and Rudolph and buy now for only $19.99!–that allegedly makes Christmas something religious minorities can celebrate, too, just makes quite a few of them feel more left out.
That’s not the same thing as being down on religious Christmas, by the way. I don’t celebrate it, since I’m agnostic, but y’all have a Merry one if you are so inclined.
Now that all that’s out of the way…
You might assume that since my S.O. is a Physics major and I was all wifty liberal arts before accidentally falling into computers that he’d be more hard-core than I am. You’d be wrong. I’m the radical in the family. In fact, when we were discussing whether or not we would commit matrimony, I was talking about all the things I didn’t want: No God talk. No giving away the bride. No promises to obey, for fuck’s sake. And no rings–stupid enforced patriarchal capitalist bullshit. And then he started to sulk, because by $DEITY, my boy wants a ring. He doesn’t care if I wear one or not, but he wants one. He even showed me the matching ones he’d picked out. And then I sighed and relented on the grounds that the ones he picked were fairly cool and not expensive. But then we didn’t commit matrimony after all, hooray!
Um. Yeah. I’m not always an easy woman to live with. I also shriek with horror when the doctor’s office leaves me voicemail calling me “Mrs.” Seriously, it sounds like someone stomped on a squeaky rubber duck or something. Yeah, I digress. Moving right along.
Anyway. The S.O. is also more of a secular Christmas traditionalist. I suggested skipping it this year and he started to pout, so help me. Then I suggested an alternate celebration where we stand outside all night on the Winter Solstice, the longest night of the year, and shout, “Where’s the fucking sun?” He said that would make us wildly unpopular with the neighbors. Killjoy. We compromised by opening our gifts on the Winter Solstice, reserving the 25th for overeating.
You’ll note that I didn’t tell anyone not to buy me presents, though. I suppose my greed outweighs my general agnostic grumpiness. In fact, I’m already deciding what I want to spend my Mom’s Christmas check on, and considering a new cellphone. Merry Consumermas to you, too!
My Muslim coworker wished me a “Happy, um, winter vacation.” I couldn’t have said it better myself.
