Christmas is under attack!!!

This is what I hear anyway from the blogosphere around the conservative side of things. And what is their apparent evidence that Christmas is under attack from the so-called "liberals" of the United States and from abroad? Yes, several companies have mandated that their employees use the more ubiquitous greeting of, "Happy Holidays" when speaking with customers this time of the year. And to that I ask, "What the hell is wrong with that?" Apparently Christians see this as an attack on Christmas itself, as in, these companies are trying to wipe out Christmas from the common vernacular and in turn, this is going to wipe out Christmas in America forever! Of course, as we are all well aware, this is not true, and this attacks Christmas not at all. In fact, why is it when people say that they want to include everyone in something, the Christians are usually the first ones out there screaming the loudest about this? I don't get it. Look, Happy Holidays means just that. It means Happy Freakin' Holidays. The holiday season spans from Thanksgiving through New Year's if you ask me, and to walk around wishing people a Merry Christmas when in fact it's still 3 weeks away from Christmas just sounds stupid anyway. And if someone wishes you a Merry Christmas anyway; who actually takes offense to something like that? Nobody that I would ever know of. Even if they were Jewish, Muslim, or some other religion that may or may not celebrate Christmas. It's just a greeting of good will, same as Happy Holidays. I never thought I would see the politicizing of Christmas and the holiday season, but it's there. Good old Dennis Hastert took most of one of his last work days in DC this week to make sure that the Capitol Holiday Tree (as it has been called since the late 80's) was re-named the Capitol Christmas Tree. And I mean listening to him speak about this, he was truly incensed. Now if he were truly incensed about running the country and how that's gone down the shitter, I could get behind him on that. But belly aching because someone called their tree a "holiday" tree instead of a Christmas tree. Come on man. Don't you have better things to do? I'd say so. Let's say you get cracking on a balanced budget, decreasing the deficit, bettering our economy, protecting the US, and oh, there is this little thing called the Iraq war going on as well. Dumb ass. How do such idiotic people get to lead our country? Oh yeah, look at the head office. Exhibit #1 of a dumb ass made good.

I learned a long time ago from my high school English teacher, Richard Kent, that during the holiday season, it's just better to say Happy Holidays. Why? Because it will offend nobody, well, that's not the case these days, but it used to be that way. Saying Happy Holidays is nothing new folks. Why get all crazy about it these days. Why is it better? Well, first off, you never know who isn't a Christian amongst you, and might not share your views about Christmas. If you're Jewish, of course, it's going to Hanukkah. African American, maybe Kwanzaa. I don't know. It's just a lot easier to say Happy Holidays. As I said before, saying Merry Christmas the weekend of Thanksgiving just doesn't sound right anyway, because, um, hey, it's not Christmas. I swear. If these people I have been hearing bitching about this pithy issue channeled some of these energies into doing something positive we'd have every major problem in the world solved already. Instead, you have people claiming, wrongly of course, that the big bad liberals are trying to take away Christmas just because a few of my bretheren want to include everybody into the holiday season.

And while these high and mighty people are getting all indignant about Christmas being taken away from them; where is their outrage about how commercialized the birth of their savior has become? Trees aren't part of Christmas really, they're pagan symbols. Santa is not a Christian symbol once again, he's pagan as well. Christmas isn't about trees, presents, drinking, partying, and basically spending a wad of cash (or it's not supposed to be to the Christians amongst us), it's supposed to celebrate the birth of Jesus Christ. So if they really want to be pissed off about something, they should start there instead of this little attack about people taking Christmas away from them. Which, once again, nobody is saying DON'T celebrate Christmas. I swear, these folks.. I swear. Case and point. The other day at work, we normally have some sort of holiday meal that our company provides to everyone for free right before the holiday shutdown. The woman who sent out the e-mail advising everyone of this made sure to put in bold the Christ in Christmas. I had a response all written down and ready to roll out when I thought better of it, and I probably would have gotten fired for that one. There was some other schlock in there as well about celebrating the birth of our lord, blah, blah, blah... Mostly, it's funny, because scholars and researchers generally agree that Jesus Christ was born somewhere in late February or March, and hence that damn stupid fish symbol you see everywhere indicating he was a Pieces. The man wasn't born in December people, it was just placed there to coincide with other religious events from other religions at the time. I love telling the hard core Christian folks that I work with that tid bit of information. It drives them over the edge normally. I can't help it. I'm an instigator.

In the Bible belt it is different. Religion, specifically Christianity (of lots of different forms) is constantly in your face all of the time. They don't call it the Bible Belt for nothing. Things up North were more simple I think. People there are just as religious as they are here, but they don't feel the need to slam you over the head with it. Look, walking distance from my parent's house (and by walking distance I mean less than a 5 minute walk) there are 3 churches. This might not seem like a lot, until you consider that there are less than 4000 people living in the entire town. Then all of the churches in town, not sure how many there are, but there are a shit ton for a very small population. So the argument that folks in the North aren't as religious hold 0 water. I just don't like being confronted with it 24/7. OK, so maybe it's not 24/7, but it's lot. People with Bibles on their desks at work. Crosses on the cubicles. Signing their work e-mails "Have a Blessed Day." It's amazing how much of it there is around me. People wearing t-shirts on the floor. Preaching to me when I tell them I don't go to church. My boss telling us she needs to witness to the gay guy that works in the office so that he won't go to hell. The guy I work with that has a "Praise Jesus" cover over his 3rd brake light in his car so that everytime he hits the brakes it lights up in your face. The Mormons and Jehovah's witnesses who keep stopping at my house (I tell them I worship Satan and they leave). It is utterly amazing. The kooks I see standing on the corners protesting against abortion every weekend. The list is really endless. These are just things that I might see on a fairly daily basis. Back home in Maine, no such thing. That being said though, the folks are nice, almost too nice, and there is something about Southern hospitality in there that is so very true. They are a welcoming group of people for the most part (as long as you're not gay), but I just don't need to be rundown by that stuff all of the time. It wears a boy out. Look folks. Overwhelmingly, America is a nation full of Christians. This isn't going to change anytime soon. As a matter of fact, there might be more of them here as time rolls forward. Why do I say that? Well, look at the illegal aliens. By and far, the vast majority of those folks crossing the border are good Christian folks subverted by the early Spanish settlers. They're bringing their religion with them. No questions asked. I just hope that we don't roll down the path of a theocratic nation. That would be horrible, and then I'd have to move to Canada for sure. I don't believe that we'll go that way, but the religious right have been emboldened by their victories over the last few years, and they are getting stronger. Ah, religion and politics. Something our founding fathers didn't want mixed together, and now they are more and more so on a daily basis. I think that they are rolling over in their graves as we speak.

I've got to tell you, I've come to a new low when it comes to work. Almost as soon as I walk in the door, my head starts pounding and won't stop no matter how many painkillers I take throughout the day. The only cure is to leave. When I left for lunch today, my head felt better, when I came back, it started thumping again. By the end of the day, I had a splitter going on. When I left this evening though, by the time I made the turn for home (about 10 minutes into my drive) my head was feeling better again. By the time I got home, nothing. No apparent trace of a splitting headache I had had 40 minutes previous. Nothing. I think that the tension and the stress that is going on with this job is getting to me, and a lot of other people in the plant right. I have a good feeling that there might not be too many people standing when all is said and done, meaning, there are going to be lots of people quitting and changing jobs, and I might be one of them. I think when I go home for Christmas, one of my little tasks will be to re-write my resume again, and start really searching for new job opportunities, because as it stands right now, the amount of pressure and stress that I'm incurring on a daily basis appears that it's going to continue for a long ass time down the road since other new programs that I have coming in are as messed up, or even more messed up than the one that I'm working on right now. I had to jump ship, but that place is killing me. Even if I arrive at the joint by 6AM, I'm not leaving before 6PM most nights. The earliest that I have left lately was this evening, 6:00PM even. I got there at 6 this morning. They have been pretty solid 12 hour work days for the most part, and I'm not even the worst case scenario. No sir. We have guys working on this project that have been working weekends for months now. So not only do they get to come in and do their regular 10 hour shift (which really isn't regular), they are also there every weekend for 8-12 hours on Saturday and Sunday. At least I get to have some resemblance of a life on the weekend, but these guys, no, they're strapped down. At least most of those guys are getting paid overtime, not so much for me. But still, they'd rather be at the house on the weekend than in the plant, and for that, I can't blame them at all, not one bit. This excess of work has led me to be constantly stressed out, and leaves little time for anything else in my life. I have the SO, but I haven't exercised much in the last few months, and that has been mostly because of work. This needs to change. So yeah, during Christmas when I'm at home, much research into new ventures and opportunities. It will be a good time to do it because after the New Year, I'll have a full complement of vacation time to be able to take a day here and there for interviews, hopefully. We'll see what I can dig up.