A 2-Dimensional Christmas and Other Ways to Yank the Rug Out From Under the Holidaze

From melissadesa.wordpress.com

With none of my household being Christian, Christmas is an odd holiday to celebrate.  But as my daughter so aptly observed, “I like getting presents!”  Yes, tis the season!  Commerce has packaged December as the month of buying, whether you be Christian, Jewish, or African-American, or none of these.  Who wants to be left out of the present-getting?  (A lot of people, but…)  I most likely would not celebrate Christmas at all, if it were not for my daughter’s desire to eat sugar, get presents, and do fun creative stuff while cooped up in the house.  As a mystic reveler, it is my challenge to turn Christmas on its head.

Goodbye, Baby Jesus.  Hello, 2-dimensional Christmas.

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MAO’S FACE ON OBAMA’S BALL: New Old News Feed (December 28, 2009)

I asked for a football, but instead I got this missing child they just found on Christmas day. Cool, I guess…

“It is rare in stranger abduction cases [that] so much time can pass without a tragic ending. This was truly a Christmas miracle.”

A miracle? Jesus walked on water, healed the blind with dirt and spit, and then finished off the day by raising the dead. Unless I missed the memo, the bar has been set pretty high.

Plus: Cops Twittering your drunk ass, awesome lady attacks Pope, and one of Obama’s balls has Mao’s face on it! After that jump…

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Merry merry to all you merries!

A time for ruminating...

Charlie Brown: I just don’t understand Christmas, I guess. I like getting presents and sending Christmas cards and decorating trees and all that, but I’m still not happy. I always end up feeling depressed.

Linus Van Pelt: Charlie Brown, you’re the only person I know who can take a wonderful season like Christmas and turn it into a problem. Maybe Lucy’s right. Of all the Charlie Browns in the world, you’re the Charlie Browniest.

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ALIENS INVADE ALASKA!!! New Old News Feed (December 21, 2009)

4-year-old boy gets wasted, steals Christmas gifts, throws on a dress, and stumbles around the town drunk as a peasant. And all before the 25th! WTF?!
Hayden runs away “trying to find his father,” Wright said. “He wants to get in trouble so he can go to jail because that’s where his daddy is.”

Plus: New eyeballs, Santa’s lawsuit against the US, skydiving grannies, and cops cops cops all after ye olde jump.

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MERRY PRESENTMAS: Mother & Daughter agree on the real meaning of Christmas, By Myra Eddy

Last week, I sat down with my daughter to have a heart-to-heart about Christmas. She’s nine now, and it was time to break the news. “Did you know, kid, that Christmas is actually about Jesus?” From the blank look on her face, I could tell she didn’t. “The reason people celebrate Christmas is because it’s supposed to be a celebration of Jesus’ birthday.”

“Really?” she said, “It’s not about the presents?”

“Well, they call it Christmas, after Jesus Christ.”

A fire came into her eyes. “I think we should just call it Presentmas, then.”

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GIFTS & GIVING: “The Gift,” by Blake Seidenshaw

Like all gifts, the gift of giving is as much for the giver as for the receiver. This paradox is especially true of homemade gifts. The modern tradition of purchasing pre-made gifts arises from our tendency to want to really give something to the receiver. Interacting through the medium of money, however, severs the giver, in a way, from the gift, and emphasizes the unidirectionality of flow, downplaying the interpersonal nature of giving. When you give something you’ve made, the act of giving retains a strong reciprocity. The receiver still “gets” something, but in that reception, “gives” something back as well.

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NEW OLD HOLIDAY NEWS FEED (Dec 8, 2009)

Links provided by the lovely Ernski.

Elf tells mall Santa that he’s carrying dynamite.
“Santa notified mall security and Morrow police quickly arrested the 5 feet tall, 108 pound Caldwell.” Tall elf. Shorter man.

Plus: Jews Gone Wild, Christmas Trees for a cool mil., annoying people saying annoying things, fruit cake, and more!!! All after the break.

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WHEN KRAMPUS RULED CHRISTMAS

Our friends in the Moorish Orthodox Church hipped us to a resurgence in Krampus appreciation over in Europe. Krampus, by the way, is Santa’s naughty counterpart, and according to one MOCer has a “predilection for sex with women and especially enjoys whipping their buttocks with a birch switch.”

Dee-lish!

A new article in Reason by Jesse Walker on the matter is here.

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NEW OLD HOLIDAY NEWS FEED (Dec 1, 2009)

Man “hates Christmas,” steals Salvation Army fund-raising kettle
“…he pushed her down and said, ‘I can’t stand you and your bell-ringing. I hate Christmas’.”

More news after the break, including laser hamsters, anti-holiday cheer pirates, and Charlie Brown!

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