Apart from Linus

It's December 7th 2006, and, like many people around this time, I am gearing up for the next holiday. It seems Thanksgiving is forgotten after everyone has mimicked the obese, and stuffed their faces full of Crisco and bacon-fat, before devouring a turkey in full. Then, grandpa loosens his belt on his pants to make room for that last piece of pumpkin pie...then explodes within seconds of finishing the last bite. The next morning, you happen to turn on the radio to hear Christmas tunes that are now labeled, "Holiday Classics". Which, on that subject just there, I've never understood the thin line advertisers and the media themselves have tread all these years. So, let me get this straight, in an ad for the Gap, you can't say Merry Christmas or the two words in the same sentence because of what again? - you might offend groups? But it's okay for you to play Christmas songs in the background, and have everyone leaping into a giant hill of fake snow. You don't see anyone playing traditional Yentl music, or any "holiday" commercials with a giddy Jewish boy, counting off the days of Chanukkah, do you?
Secretly, and I believe this to be true, our government is Christian. We sport that if you come to America, we will embrace your culture, and it's more freedom then you'll know what to do with, but behind the inviting smile, we also ask that you convert to Christianity, and learn English. This is the quick-sand portion of my rant because I firmly believe that anyone who comes to this country should learn to speak this countries' language, even if that said language stole its root words from other languages. It's quick-sand because from what I just said, that top part, about how our government is Christian, and has full backing behind the phrase, "Do what we say, not as we do," has sunk me deeper. The last thing I want is to be consumed by hypocrisy, go back on anything I've said previously, or just come off as cold-hearted, or an ignorant ass, though, everyone is entitled to their own opinion of me.
There are too many people to count out there that are concerned with, "When will the U.S. have a black president, or a woman for president," when really, I'm more interested in when we will not have a Christian president. When will a Jew come forward to lead this country that isn't Joseph Lieberman? Now there's an ignorant ass. His politics are all concerned with morals; can't have violence and sex on television, or in any other media, violent video games were invented by the devil, and, I don't know, what else? - children should continue to breast-feed until they hit 17. Isn't the U.S. like one of the only countries on this earth that have yet to break through our sexual revolution? I mean, Christ, go to Japan and they sell little teenage girls' panties from a vending machine, and no one cares. Germans love gangbangs; that's a fact! Sexuality in Europe is so open, they don't have to revolt. They have gone through that and have broken the mold, yet, we've been going through it for centuries, and we still have restrictions. I'm not saying it should be right to go out and fuck a dog, but, they charge people and arrest them for sodomy. Just a little ass-sex is illegal. Big Brother better not be watching when you ask permission to stick it in the ass.
Would we see a change if our president wasn't Christian? Would more people explore the religion that of the president of the United States?
Does it irk anyone else that we celebrate Christmas as a Christian holiday, when there is no mention of Christmas in the Holy Bible? Sure, it's the day Jesus was born, but there isn't a date set for when that event was, and Christmas was conceived from the Pagan's winter solstice, or that of the Greek holiday, the Saturnalia, the Roman's festival of Saturn. Here is Saturalia, the festival where the Romans got hammered, gave gifts to one another, before a vast orgy. Christmas was also not even celebrated by the church until 440 A.D., where the Church at Jerusalem instated it after Roman Catholicism sprang up. Before that even, the Emperor Constantine forced all pagans in his land to be baptized, so now you have renegades running a muck, crossing themselves, saying they are Christian when they still practice Paganism. So what's Constantine do, you might ask? He creates these Babylonian mystery religions in 313 A.D., which lead to the holding of the Council of Nicaea in 325 A.D. Basically, Constantine said, "Christianity is open to adopt your beliefs, Pagans, including your winter solstice festival...whatchamacallit...join our church, and you can practice that, along with some other religious crap you guys like...," and thus, the doors were opened for Christmas, or, back to what I was saying before, Saturalia, which was held for Saturn, the harvest god, and Mithras, the god of light.
(I'm just about done Tarantino-ing this whole rant, I might add)
In order to make Christianity acceptable to the heathen Pagans, as Constantine would call them, the Roman Church simply took Saturnalia, and adopted it into Christianity. It wasn't until 375 A.D., that the Church of Rome under Pope Julius I, would announce that the birth date of Christ had been "discovered" to be December 25th, and was accepted as such by the "faithful". The festival of Saturnalia and the birthday of Mithras could now be celebrated as the birthday of Christ, hence, the creation of "Christ's Mass," or whatever they probably called it, in 440 A.D.

Yeah, Constantine, to boost the numbers of people going to church, tricked Pagans into celebrating Christianity by saying they could continue to celebrate their religious winter solstice, then stole the holiday altogether, had his friend Julius come by with some fake-ass documents saying Jesus was born on December 25th, had Christmas instated as a religious holiday as the birth of Christ, further duping the Pagans and everyone else. I don't think I'd go as far as to say I've stopped celebrating Christmas as a religious holiday because who really knows if those documents suggesting Christ was born on December 25 were a lie or not, but I have shunned Santa Claus. I think it's downright perverted for a child to compare Santa to Christ, or to say Santa IS Christ. Ho ho ho Santa Claus, all dressed in red and white, is a good spirited hoax based on the real saint of Christmas who gave to the poor, and distributed presents to children. He died out a long time ago, but his spirit lives on. Jesus Christ, though he did give to the needy and do magic shows for kids, is far from Santa. The day I see a crucifix with Santa pinned to it instead of my Lord Jesus Christ, is the day I shoot myself.
Christmas will forever be another holiday where I get together with the family, with a whole lot of food on the table, and smiles around the table. It's a holiday where I'll sit down, as I usually do when I get religious, one on one with Jesus, and say thanks for what I have. Sure, at the end of Christmas, I'll have more possessions than I know what to do with, but the true meaning of Christmas to me is outside those possessions; it's love for family, friends, and the life we share.