Merry Christmas!

It's December.

It's the month every year when we all find it in our hearts to kindly give to others in an unconditionally loving manner and limp off smiling into the sunset on our digital crutches, tweeting “God bless us, every one!¹” over our shoulders into the camera with the assurance that all of the problems in the world can be solved with one last-minute God-fearing humbugectomy.

It's the month in which we all step aside to make sure every literate child overdoses on the Adderall of faith in faith and the therapeutic wisdom that so long as they remain good little believers, the world will postpone tragedy to sate itself on gluten-free chocolate chip cookies and lactose-free milk. And then on one special long winter night, that magical red pot-bellied jolly Christmas god will fly around the world to teach them that judgment and faith beget charity, instead of the other way around.

It's the time of year when we all drop our petty biases for more refined perspectives on peace and love, and the differences between us are washed away in a divine light of Christmas Spirit™, allowing everyone to share in this wonderful holiday provided they celebrate the same Christmas everyone else does and implicitly propagandize a nearly 2000 year old book of explicit duplicity.

It's that special time of year when the sounds of sleigh bells and Christmas carols conjure the image of snow falling on a polemical battlefield where hyperbole is declared on disagreement and exclusion is the road to amity, replacing the other generic season-based images of a polemical battlefield where hyperbole is declared on disagreement and exclusion is the road to amity.

It's an annual celebration of love for family, which can be measured by the enjoyment on the faces of the children opening gifts we bought with pepper spray at 4:00am on Black Friday and the return value of the items we didn't know our loved ones well enough to know they wouldn't appreciate, because it's the thought that counts.

Lastly, as Christmas approaches, we can take comfort in the knowledge that as soon as it is over, we can overvalue the turning of the clock one more time by imbibing massive quantities of intoxicating carbonated candy and viewing thousands of people standing in the cold to witness a giant lighted globe descend over the frigid streets of New York, and anticipate the very same annual cycle transpiring once again.

This year, I'm celebrating a second Thanksgiving.

Merry Christmas!

1 In this context, “every one” refers only to God-fearing Christian Republicans, as they are the only people with the God-given right to exclusively celebrate a religious holiday their ancestors pieced together from the winter festivities of the cultures preceding theirs.