Blessings

I hope all of my readers have a blessed Festivus, Christmas, Hanukkah, Solstice, Saturnalia, Sol Invictus, Kwanzaa, or anything else you might celebrate.

Happy Holidays (Updated)

I've been seeing a lot of unhappiness in the virtual world lately. Bloggers and Facebookers are fighting. Christians saying "Put Christ back in Christmas" and "It's Merry Christmas, not Happy Holidays". Others are fighting back, and it's turning into a flame war.

Instead of snapping back with things like "Santa is a rip-off of Odin" or "It was a Pagan Solstice Tree long before it was a Christmas tree", take a deep breath. Try not to take up arms in the supposed "War on Christmas".

The phrase "Happy Holidays" isn't meant to take anything away from anyone, even Christians. It's meant to embrace every holiday in December. Christmas, Yule, Kwanzaa, Hanukkah, Festivus, Sol Invictus, and Saturnalia, just to name the ones I know of. There's probably more I don't. Taking offense to "Happy Holidays" shows off your bigotry. It says you are incapable of coexisting with someone different from yourself.

I actually believe in "all or nothing" when it comes to federal, state, county/parish, or city buildings. When displaying Christmas Trees or Nativities for the public, they should be inclusive of all religions represented by the people. Being tolerant does not mean hiding evidence of differences. It means showing off the differences, while putting them on equal footing with the others. Or, only put up secular decorations.

I get tired of hearing about Christians whining that they're being deprived of their holiday, of their religion. In reality, they are not. They are only being forced into equality with other religions that have holidays overlapping their own. As anyone who has researched can tell you, nearly all Christmas symbols were stolen from older pagan religions in an attempt to trick said pagans into converting. Including, but not limited to, decorating evergreen trees, giving gifts, waiting for a magical being/deity to punish or reward, and a miraculous birth.

I seriously think we all need to take a collective step back and mind our own business, instead of forcing everyone around ourselves to agree with us, or go away. Because trying to force people to conform to your beliefs is like trying to mix oil and water. It's impossible to do so. We're all different, and we're designed that way. It's time to get over ourselves, and just enjoy whatever holiday is important to us, secular or religious.

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I changed my mind, and decided to have a video instead of a picture here. Enjoy!