‘Twas Three Months Before Christmas (original) (raw)

Maybe talking about Halloween is pointless, since it seems like some people just want to skip October and November entirely. I recently came across this picture of Home Depot on Tumblr:

It also reflects the situation at the Home Depot near here, although I didn’t take any pictures of it. I have to wonder if it’s the same way at the mall. Why do we need to haul out the holly so early? It seems like merchants think putting out Christmas decorations so far ahead of time will also mean Christmas profits far ahead of time. I don’t know that this works, especially in a recession, but the practice persists. Hey, I LIKE Christmas, but I don’t want to think about it at this time of year. Santa dear, we’re in no hurry.

It isn’t only the stores that are getting an early start on the winter holidays, however, but also the War on Christmas crowd. You might have seen mention of this direct-to-video release, Christmas with a Capital C (apparently as opposed to christmas with a lower-case c, which isn’t as much fun):

But wait a minute! It looks like the villain of this piece (well, it’s a piece of SOMETHING, anyway) hates Christmas because of a personal vendetta. Do the makers of this movie think that’s secretly the case with ALL secularists? Or are they undermining their own point by making this guy act for personal reasons, rather than because he’s a member of the Baby-Eating Atheist Anti-Christmas Cabal? And am I the only one who thinks that main character (played by one of the less famous Baldwin Brothers) comes off as a total jerkoff? “Season’s Greetings” doesn’t work for you, Whiny McJock? See, that’s what I don’t get about these people. It’s like, if someone doesn’t mention Christmas to them every five minutes, they’ll forget what holiday they’re celebrating. How hard is it to understand that you can Christmas your brains out until you drown in eggnog, but you can’t force other people to celebrate your holiday? No, apparently if anyone dares to think differently from them, it shatters their entire world view. This really seems to be the Fox News gang in a stocking-stuffing nutshell. The right-wing talking heads constantly assure their followers that they’re in the majority, but they also insist this majority should be terrified of the largely powerless minority. Dudes, if there’s a war on Christmas, how come Home Depot even now contains more trees and Santas than you can shake a holly stick at? Oh, but the war is being carried out in the public arena, because occasionally someone protests a Christmas tree in the town square! Wait, aren’t you the ones who are always bitching about taxes? So it’s a problem if your tax money goes to health care or getting junk cars off the roads, but not if it’s used for a giant nativity scene? Sure, the Christmas decorations cost a lot less, but aren’t they still a use of taxpayer money that would be better channeled into more gifts for already-rich corporations? Maybe if you’d stop being such whiners, you’d get something other than coal in your stocking this year.