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#christmas – @holyfunnyhistoryherring on Tumblr
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must there be a title

@holyfunnyhistoryherring

is it not enough to just vibe
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tiktoksgay

Oh the picture of it

[Captions:

Story time. So about 33 years ago, before I was born, when my older brother was coming up on his first Christmas, my mom went to my dad and she said, "hey, can we get a Christmas tree for the baby's first Christmas?" And my dad said, "well, I don't know. I'm Jewish and we never had one when I was growing up and I don't know if I feel comfortable." So my mom said, "well can I hang ornaments on something else?"

And years later, my dad would say, "knowing your mother, I should have said no," but at the time he said, "sure." So my mom, who is very crafty, took one of those balsa wood miniature dinosaur skeleton construction kits and she blew up all the pieces through a projector to be four times the size and she traced them all out on plywood. And she cut them all out with a table saw and the Christmas dinosaur was born. This is Perry the Parasaurolophus.

I do wish that my parents had explained to me, before the holiday season rolled around my kindergarten year, that I was probably going to be the only kid with a Christmas dinosaur.

End captions.]

[Video description: a tik tok by user @mattiewex (Mattie Wex). In it Mattie, who is pale skinned with wavy brown hair, glasses, and a sparse mustache, is relating a story to the camera while on a walk. When it comes to the lines of their parents, Mattie plays it as a skit, while wearing different shirts and sweaters indoors. There are also shown stock photos of the miniature dinosaur models and footage of the big Christmas dinosaur. End VD.]

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jay-auris

The lyrics "I'm dreaming of a white Christmas, just like the ones I used to know" hit differently in the age of climate change

Sometimes I think about those old photographs from the late 1800s of snow drifts taller than a person, right in the heart of major cities, and then I think about how for the last 3 years we haven't had enough snow here to cover the grass.

my childhood memories are scattered at best. but i do remember walking from school to church in early or mid December to do the dress rehearsal for our Christmas pageant, and the plowheaps were already two feet high, and the sidewalk was covered in ice and snowpack, so we all had to walk very carefully.

i live in the same town again, and there's currently no snow at all on the ground. we got a couple one-inch snowfalls in November or very early December, and it's all gone bc it's been so warm this month

i can't remember any year, as a kid, when we didn't have a white Christmas. last year wasn't a white Christmas here. this year is probably not going to be, unless the meteorologists are very wrong. hell, it's supposed to clear 50F on Christmas Eve!

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‘Tis the season again

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nureyev313

The pine tree will provide nourishment for him as he slumbers in his nylon cocoon, ready to emerge next winter and rebuild his christmas tree hoard. Nature is so beautiful!

I thought it was a wood chipper for one horrible second

[Image: tags that read, “One year, the guy at home depot saw that I was fascinated with the wrapping contraption, so he asked me if I wanted to go through it. And I said yes because what a fun and weird opportunity. And he was so impressed that I was game, that after I went through it, he let my parents have the tree for free.” End description.]

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carnahan

And yet there are those who doubt him and question how he gets around the entire world in one night…

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airred

santa’s creed

this has been on queue since january 2nd and it was worth every minute

I’m queuing this on December 26th I’m ready for this

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clarisimart

You better watch out

You better watch out

You better watch out

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isa-ghost

YOU BETTER WATCH OUT

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hi-im-ryn

[Gif: man dressed like Santa doing parkour to get of two separate roofs.

Video: the source. He does some other stunts in it, to a techno remix of Christmas music.

End description.]

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Happy first day of the war on Christmas everyone

Yearly reminder to gentiles that

1. Jews do not recognize Jesus as anything but a human man who probably existed in some capacity at some point

2. We do not celebrate his birthday. He is just some guy to us.

3. It is not a personal attack on you if we don’t celebrate your favorite holiday.

4. Chanukah is not the most important Jewish holiday, its just the only one you know by name because it happens roughly around Christmas time.

5. You can say or do whatever you want, we just think you’re annoying. At the end of the day, you’re still gonna get school or work off on Christmas and Easter while I have to chose between my religion and my schoolwork every year on Yom Kippur and Rosh Hashanah.

6. You are not the victim. However, unfortunately you are usually the main character.

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evilkitten3

if anyone has ever wondered what an example of casual antisemitism might look like, that person need simply open the notes the this post and observe

anyway op is 100000% correct

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one of the things i love about ebenezer scrooge, and a christmas carol in general, is that, unlike most fictional rich people, scrooge doesn't allow himself the luxuries that he denies to others.

like. he is enormously wealthy, but does he spend his money on good food and nice things and indulgences? no. he keeps his house dark because it's cheaper to not light things, he eats gruel, he barely even makes a big enough fire to heat himself, let alone the room. he scrimps and pinches pennies everywhere he can - including in areas that other people would consider "necessities" rather than "luxuries."

the story of a christmas carol is as much about ebenezer scrooge coming to realize that his misanthropy and miserliness is making himself as miserable as it's making everyone around him, and learning to once again take joy in living in a way he hasn't allowed himself since he was a boy.

it's genuinely cruel to ebenezer scrooge to compare him to assholes like elon musk and jeff bezos.

for all that he is a terrible, terrible person, at least scrooge isn't a damn hypocrite.

i mean i was picturing the muppet version while writing this, so yes, correct.

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cowoscare

This looks so wholesome but I’m lacking the context needed to identify why-

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imsopopfly

Jewish people don’t celebrate Christmas, to them it’s just another day. So they often would want to go out to eat, but a lot of restaurants here in the US close on Christmas. Chinese restaurants are usually open on Christmas though and they usually have a lot of kosher options, making them one of the prime eating out options. So we started going to Chinese restaurants on Christmas out of convenience and it evolved into a tradition :)

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alexseanchai

[image: tweet by Memes of Judaism: “TRADITION! Tradition. 🥠🥡🥟”. embedded in the tweet is a photo of a handwritten sign with a red border, which reads, “The Chinese Restaurant Association of the United States would like to extend our thanks to The Jewish People. We do not completely understand your dietary customs… But we are proud and grateful that your GOD insist you eat our food on Christmas. Happy Holidays!” the bottom of the sign is decorated with a yin-yang symbol and a Star of David.]

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crawlingrats

Please please PLEASE watch this Christmas spot we got in Spain

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macmanx

😍

[video description:

View of a town skyline at dusk in the winter, with the J&B Blended Scotch Whiskey logo superimposed on the picture. A flock of sheep walks from left to right, making baaa sounds, their bells jangling. Some Christmas lights with a star are strung along some telephone poles on the left side of the frame.

Cut to the inside of a house where an older man with white hair is sitting in an armchair reading a paper. His wife comes in and puts her handbag on the side table. She’s on the phone, and quickly moves into another room. A lipstick rolls out of the bag. The older man surreptitiously picks up the lipstick, then sneaks into the bathroom, locks the door, and attempts to apply the lipstick. He is not pleased with the results. He wipes off the lipstick and hides it in a small makeup bag on top of the bathroom mirror cabinet.

Elvis Costello’s song “She” begins to play when the wife walks in, and it plays throughout the video. The first line of the song is “She may be the face I can’t forget,” and as the video goes on we learn why this song is significant to the story being told by the ad.

The older man goes to a small store and buys more makeup. The female shopkeeper gives him an unfriendly glare when he pays for his purchase.

The old man looks at a magazine in his home. He tears out a page about makeup and goes back into the bathroom to experiment with the eyeshadow he bought earlier. He tries the lipstick again and adds some rouge. The result is better, but he’s not quite satisfied.

The man goes to a bus stop. Inside the bus shelter, he minutely examines the eye makeup on the model in an ad on the shelter wall. He jumps away from the ad when another man enters the shelter and sits down. The other man doesn’t seem to have noticed what the older man was doing.

Back in the bathroom, the man experiments with mascara. He likes the result. He puts the lipstick on again, and likes this too. Someone knocks on the door, so he hurriedly wipes off the makeup and hides the makeup bag again.

Scene cuts to the living room, where the man sits in his chair reading the newspaper. He looks over at some family photos. One of them shows the man with his arm around a teenager with short, dark hair.

Scene then cuts to the man’s bedroom. It’s nighttime, and he’s in bed with his sleeping wife. The man sneaks out of bed and back into the bathroom. He puts on all the kinds of makeup he bought: lipstick, rouge, mascara, eyeshadow. He looks at himself in the mirror, all made up, and smiles. Now he’s got it right.

The next day, the man is in his living room, where he hears a car honk outside. He goes and looks out the window. Outside is a group of people greeting each other in the driveway; they are an extended family, and apparently have just arrived at the older man’s house. One of the family members is a young man with short, dark hair. Text superimposed on the screen reads “Alvaro, 26 años,” indicating the name and age of the young man. The scene cuts back inside, where the older man comes away from the window, looking thoughtful.

The family sets the table for Christmas dinner, putting out plates and silverware and lighting candles. The older man goes to Alvaro and gestures with his head. “Come with me.” They go into the bathroom. The older man locks the door, then proceeds to put the makeup on Alvaro with much love and tenderness. The older man is happy with the way Alvaro looks. Alvaro is pleased, too.

Cut back to the dining room, where the rest of the family is laughing and talking together. Conversation suddenly stops and people look up, surprised. The grandfather ushers his grandchild out of the bathroom. She stands nervously in front of her family, her face beautifully done. The family pause, then start to smile. The camera goes close on a man with greying hair and beard. He seems overcome with happy emotion, and seems to be the grandchild’s father.

The camera goes back close on the grandchild, who looks shyly at her family. The name and age superimposed now read “Ana, 26 años.”

A woman with greying short hair stands up and goes to Ana. This apparently is Ana’s mom. She gives Ana a big hug. The mom is crying with happiness and love, and smiles at the grandfather through her tears. The grandfather blinks and seems shy but pleased.

The camera pulls back to show everyone at the table again. The grandfather is standing and leading a toast. Superimposed text reads “La magia no solo está en la Navidad. También está en nosotros.” (The magic isn’t only in Christmas. It’s also in us.)

A series of short close shots. Ana happily raises her glass with everyone else. The grandfather takes his wife’s hand and kisses it. Ana’s dad takes a sip of his whiskey, then Ana’s grandmother goes over and gives Ana a big hug.

There’s a brief shot of a bottle of J&B whiskey, which is on the table with the other dinner things, then the scene cuts to show the grandfather looking at Ana and raising his glass to her, smiling. Ana raises her glass to her grandfather and smiles at him.

Final shot is the J&B logo on a black background with the text “de celebrarnos” (to celebrate us).

/end description]

I cannot actually believe we now live in a world where a whisky company thinks it’s commercially viable to make this ad, and to make it about a grandfather who makes Christmas dinner with a family of very “ordinary looking people into a happy, loving affair, by doing this. 

I do not know how to explain how fucking impossible that would have seemed to me twenty years ago when I just realized that possibly, maybe, I wasn’t straight. I cannot explain to you how amazing this is, and how beautiful it is. 

This did not just happen, and yes there are people everywhere fighting to take it away but I cannot explain you the change in the overall culture of everything, everywhere that makes this possible. 

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pissvortex

it was a book from 2005 that never really took off until they put it in the Macy’s parade for some reason. the title being coercively named “A Christmas Tradition” seemingly made a bunch of parents panic and think they were withholding some beloved christmas tradition from their children, leading to the book and subsequent elf doll to receive its first ever surge of popularity. at that point it just started spreading through cartoon adaptations (creating the expectancy of this product from children to uphold Christmas Lore) and online memes showing the elf in silly locations. anyone who was a child from 2012-2014 will tell you that it literally appeared out of thin air one year.

a truly unique American christmas tradition fueled entirely by marketing and parents’ need to one-up other parents by proving how much more fun they are with their kids

as someone else in the notes also pointed out, the emphasis on this tradition is that the elf is “always watching you” and reporting everything you do to santa clause, but you aren’t allowed to interfere with the elf’s surveillance or touch him or else he loses his christmas magic, and you literally just murdered an innocent elf.

coincidentally the year Elf on The Shelf gained popularity was also the year Edward Snowden leaked the NSA documents proving that the U.S. government has been surveilling everyone using invasive techniques regardless of criminality

[Image 1: a tweet by pudding person @/JUNIPER that reads, “I have never heard of elf on the shelf in my entire life until 3 years ago, where the hell did it come from. This is no tradition, this is a psyop.”

Image 2: another tweet by pudding person @/JUNIPER. This one reads, “the first time I saw that format "you've heard of elf on the shelf, now get ready for _" I thought no, I absolutely have not heard of elf on the shelf”

Image 3: from a Wikipedia page titled The Elf on the Shelf, “The Elf on the Shelf: A Christmas Tradition is a 2005 American picture book for children, written by Carol Aebersold and he daughter Chanda Bell and illustrated by Coë Steinwart.”

Image 4: text, maybe from the same page, “When did Elf on the shelf get popular? In 2012, The Elf on the Shelf made its first appearance in the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade, alongside fellow Parade newcomers Hello Kitty and Papa Smurf. In 2013, the book hit the Number 1 spot on the USA Today bestsellers list.”

Image 5: text that reads, “Many privacy organizations and researchers criticize the product for teaching children involuntary, non-consentual surveillance is normal. Washington Post reviewer Hank Stuever characterized the concept as "just another nannycam in a nanny state obsessed with penal codes". Professor Lana Pinto suggests that it conditions kids to accept the surveillance state and that it communicates to children that "it's okay for other people to spy on you, and you're not entitled to privacy." She argues that, "if you grow up thinking it's cool for the elves to watching me and report back to Santa, well, then it's cool for the NSA to watch me and report back to the government... The rule of play is that kids get to interact with a doll or video game or what have you, but not so with the Elf on the Shelf: The rule is that you don't touch the elf. Think about the message that sends."”

End description.]

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Hot take, I despise Christmas Carolers. Unironically. They go door to door and show up unannounced at YOUR HOUSE and start singing, and then if you want them to leave, you have to interrupt their song, and suddenly YOU’RE the asshole for ruining their Christmas spirit when you didn’t ask to be apart of this in the first place. And if you want to avoid them you have to just not answer the door at all on Christmas Eve. Which is fucking annoying because like, Christmas Eve is just a regular ass night for a lot of people. Or even if you do something for Christmas, you might be expecting someone to come over or something, but any time you answer the door you risk a Random Christ Encounter, and then you have to either stand there smiling and nodding until they’re done, or interrupt them to politely ask them to leave, and then suddenly you’re the bad guy. It’s literally just “I’m gonna show up at your house and start celebrating my holiday, and if you don’t join in you’re being mean to me”

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hazel2468

I’ve been told I “hate Christmas too much” and “Why can’t you just enjoy the holiday spirit”, and like...

People who are culturally Christian don’t fucking understand how fucking AWFUL it is to constantly have the same people, who practice the same religion, that has been shoved in your face and used to threaten you, be treated as some fun harmless thing you should just accept and go along with.

To you, Christmas is fun. Fuck, maybe you’re even one of those people that thinks CHRISTmas is secular.

Christian holidays have long been times when Jews were targeted for fucking violence. Days like Christmas were days when Jews, branded Christ-killers, faced violence and hatred. Christmas, today, is a day when I have had WITHOUT FAIL someone try to bring me to Jesus every year. It’s a day when we all get off from work, no questions asked, while I need to fucking argue to get my days of religious observance off. It’s fucking MONTHS of seeing people brand Channukah, a holiday centered on the resilience and survival of my people in the face of those who would force us to assimilate or die, as “Jewish Christmas”.

It’s fucking EXHAUSTING.

Yep. And extra frustrating when even the slightest pushback is branded as “the war on Christmas” and “the radical leftist agenda to ruin this sacred day for all Americans.” And it’s literally just because we don’t want to participate in a religion that isn’t our own.

I actually do not give a single shit if you celebrate Christmas in your house, or at church, or at some private event at like a restaurant or mall or something, or even in public places so long as it’s not disruptive to others using the space. Because that’s how the rest of us celebrate our holidays.

I’m not ruining your holiday spirit, I’m trying to tell you to be a normal fucking person like the rest of us and stop trying to include us in shit we aren’t interested in being included in.

I don’t want to derail, as a non-Jew, because this is clearly some sorely-needed venting, but I would like to offer some gentle advice to certain Christians who are unhappy reading this: you don’t actually have to give up caroling altogether if it’s an important part of your holiday. Just stick to where you’re wanted.

A high school choir in my area used to carol in nursing homes or other places that had a pretty connected community of people all living in one place. They just put up a couple of fliers in the weeks prior that said when they would be coming by the neighborhood to carol, and gave some contact info so that anyone who wanted them to stop by their room/apartment/house could let them know. It let the residents who responded plan ahead and have something to look forward to that day, and it ensured that all the other residents didn’t have to be disturbed by the carolers if they didn’t want it.

Most of the complaints non-Christians have about Christians aren’t really asking you to give up any of your favorite traditions, they’re just asking you to be respectful of everyone else while you do it. And like OP was saying, that means letting other people choose not to engage with you at all if that’s what they prefer.

Yes. That is the perfect way to go about it. It can be a very nice and fun tradition with people who want to be apart of it, I just would prefer not to!

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When the effing conservatives talk about the 1950s and 60s they don’t mention high union membership.

“Conservatives want to go home to the 1950s; progressives want to go to work there.”–An old professor of mine

[Image: an old drawing of a smiling man and woman. The man is putting bows on boxes, that are scattered on top of a table. The four boxes are labeled "Shorter hours, Better working conditions, Decent wages, Old age pensions". The woman is holding a card labeled "Union card" and her speech bubble says, "That card makes it possible for us to have the best Christmas in the world!" Next to her is a Christmas tree, and behind him hangs a wreath.

End description.]

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Please can you tell me everything you know about Siôn Corn when you've got a spare minute some time?

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LMAO I expect I know exactly why you’re asking this, and for the record, yes, listening to Steff explaining this to you wrong was torturous. 

Okay, so, he got the first bit rightish: the literal translation of Siôn Corn is indeed “Chimney John”. And, he’s also right that this is a weird aspect of the Father Christmas myth for the Welsh to choose to focus on, since other names are like

  • Father Christmas. The benevolent old man who encapsulates the holiday of CHRISTMAS
  • St Nicholas. A literal saint who helped the poor
  • Santa Claus. A derivation of St Nicholas; see above
  • Kris Kringle. From the German “Kristkindl”, meaning “Christ child”.
  • Siôn Corn. Weirdo who enters and exits your house through the chimney.

Really, you’d expect the Welsh to have been Tad Nadolig, for a literal translation of Father Christmas. Buuuuuuut, there’s inevitably more to it than that.

So the modern myth of Santa really is fairly modern, dating to about the 1850s in America. Now, Britain had the older English tradition of Father Christmas at the time, dating from roughly the 16th century, but he was actually very contentious because British Christians historically loved fighting about the Right Way To Perform Christianity without ever reading a single fucking word Jesus actually said, and the Puritans fucking hated him for being pagan and idolatrous or something. Anyway, he was a bit different, and he waxed and waned in popularity until Santa Claus crossed over from the States thanks to Dutch settlers and promptly got merged. 

Anyway, “Christmas-specific gift-giving figure” was something children adopted with glee. Adults enjoyed the mystery aspect. All was good.

But, just as Santa got added to a pre-existing English figure...

Same thing happened in Wales. 

Now, Anglo-Wales were also on the Father Christmas train, but Welsh language Wales had its own shit going on. And yes, I am aware that you people all know about the creepy horse skull Christmas ghost thing, yes, I pick up several hundred new followers every Christmas period as that post does the rounds again, but the Mari Lwyd is more of a mid-winter celebration than a specifically Christmas one - most are done on New Year’s these days. And, naturally, she was not the only bit of Christmas folklore about the place, and that was just as well, because while it’s fairly easy to ascribe Jolly Christmas Gift Giver to Father Christmas, it’s much harder to lend qualities like generosity and Christ-like compassion to, as you yourself once put it so eloquently Maia, an ornery horse-skulled nightmare beast. 

(Side note: JUST IMAGINE if we had tho. “Goodnight, children! Remember to leave out the cheese and cider for Santa Mari. She’ll go through the cupboards for it otherwise. Ooh, is she here?!? I think I hear the sound of bones clacking on the roof!”)

Anyway: another, there was.

So, around Glamorgan/Gwent kind of way there was a local sort of fey spirit thing called, according to the English-language sources from the time, Chimney Jack. Now Chimney Jack falls right into the standard faerie motifs from Welsh domestic life in which you have to do your housework well to be rewarded, and if you don’t you get punished. Like all such creatures, the tales were told to kids to get them to behave. In Chimney Jack’s case, there’s an interesting detail: if you behaved, he would reward you by leaving you a gift of coal. If you were bad, you got nothing.

Wales, of course, was super-poor, so coal was actually a very important gift. But that was subsequently sucked into the bigger myth and turned into the punishment - toys if you’re good, coal if you’re bad. BUT, more to the point, Chimney Jack was also so-named because he was believed to be a faerie that lived in the chimney. If you were REALLY bad he’d throw soot around the house, too, and clog up the flue and make the fire crackle and spit.

But, we therefore have two important elements, you’ll note: he gives gifts, and he lives in the chimney. Much like this zippy new god of children called Santa Claus that we’re importing for Christmas joy, and hey, they are very similar aren’t they? Probs the same thing, we should think. Hey kids, come listen to the tale of  Siôn Corn.

And that’s why we end up with Siôn Corn instead of Tad Nadolig - because our Santa figure doesn’t come from the English tradition. He comes from a tricksy faerie of Welsh provenance called Chimney Jack. 

And yes, I’m pretty sure early pre-mince pie offerings to appease him were cheese.

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teathattast

Four horsemen of Christmas

[Image 1: a small pole with a base of four 'arms'. It is wrapped in fake pine needle garland and has a single red spherical ornament on top

Image 2: a big and bushy Christmas tree in a room and they likely had to cut the top half of it to fit. The result is a nearly cylindrical pole of tree branches from the floor to the ceiling, taking up nearly the entire room

Image 3: a pile of wrapped presents, above which hangs a car air freshener shaped like a pine tree

Image 4: a Christmas tree, decorated in lights that goes right through the roof. The photo is taken from outside the house

End description.]

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How I learned not to be quite AS annoyed by people automatically wishing me “Merry Christmas”

I just started to think of it as being like Pooh Bear and Piglet going around wishing people a very happy Thursday (I remember reading that, and I’ve seen it meme-ified, but I can’t remember which book or chapter that’s actually from).

I mean – the word Christmas is a specific name for a specific day. And that day has that name regardless of whether I am a follower of the religion for which it was named.

After all, I bet most people who talk about it being a Thursday don’t actually worship Thor (although the Finnish bear god became associated with Thor after Norse contact, so now that I think of it, maybe Pooh and friends actually do).

Anyway, that’s what helps me.

Interesting way of thinking. The quote comes from Chapter 8 of “The House at Pooh Corner”: “In Which Piglet Does a Very Grand Thing”.

Interesting way of thinking. 

Thank you!

Of course, it all depends on the source.  Many people are sincere in their wish that I have a happy day-called-Christmas.* And I have no objection to people wishing happiness for other people – in fact, I encourage it.

To those people, I say: “Thank you! You too!”

There are other people, however, who you can just tell are saying it in bad faith – as a declaration of their personal faction, a sort of dare, or a test of allegiance.

To those people I say: “And happy New Year!” (to remind them why “Happy Holidays!” has been the default greeting since the invention of Christmas Cards – there are two holidays back-to-back, and they are both in honor of the same baby). What are they gonna do? Get mad at me? In my experience, they just get flustered.

*(These people might assume that I spend my that day celebrating the same observation that they do, which would be an incorrect assumption. But there’s no need for me to divulge my seasonal practices to strangers).

That makes sense. Thank you for your wise words.

You’re welcome!

And whatever you’re doing today, I hope you have a very merry time at it.

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