Only moments ago I had the misfortune to be subjected to one of the greatest atrocities ever perpetrated on the American public: An advertisement for a Black Friday sale involving a parody of the song ‘Friday’. I see here everything wrong with the world wrapped up on one annoying package.

Well, not everything. I have my own list of the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse: Shredded Cheese in a Bag, The Ever Increasing Popularity of NASCAR, The Continuing Success of Brittany Spears, and Black Friday Door Busters. Well, those are only a few of the ugly faces they wear, what is underneath is much more frightening. Laziness With Food and Nutrition(and a Disconnect From Food Sources), Pride in Ignorance(since when did being Intellectual or Educated become a bad thing?<Sometimes seen as The Re-Election of Pres ‘W’ Bush and more recently in the form of Sarah Palin>), The Worship of Worthless People With No Talent Who Do Nothing To Improve The Human Condition, and Rampant Consumerism.

This particularly annoying commercial I had the great misfortune to witness is surely the evil brainchild of two of the Horsemen, Black Friday Door Busters and The Continuing Success of Brittany Spears(in the guise of Rebecca Black).

I have written before on our society’s disconnect from our food, and will likely do so again, especially about why, exactly, shredded cheese in a bag is evil. Pride in Ignorance deserves its own post entirely, as does The Worship of Worthless People With No Talent Who Do Nothing To Improve The Human Condition.

Today, I would like to talk about the War being perpetrated upon Christmas. I would like to talk about Black Friday.

Yes, there IS a war being waged on Christmas, but it’s not what the right wing pundits would have you think. Jesus is NOT the Reason for the Season. The winter solstice is the reason for the season. If you have read your bible, you will already know that Jesus was born in the springtime. The winter solstice has been celebrated by countless cultures since the dawn of time, and Jesus had nothing to do with it. Christmas is nothing more than a relic of ancient Roman propaganda, an attempt at trickery to convert the pagan sun worshipers of Europe.

No, what we celebrate really has nothing to do with a resurrected Jewish carpenter. Think about the warm feelings you get when when I say Christmas, think about what we really celebrate. Is Jesus anywhere in there? No. What we celebrate is family, generosity, love, joy, compassion. You don’t need to be a Christian to celebrate those things. In fact, from my point of view as a jaded and rabid atheist, you are more likely to celebrate those things if you are not a Christian.

I’ll take a moment to address that last comment before I continue. Studies have shown that the more fundamental a believer is, the less likely they are to follow Christ’s actual teachings. Not only that, but atheists and agnostics are actually more informed and educated about the bible than those who identify as Christian, and are far more informed than those who identify as Fundamentalist. The Bible is kind of like one of those Terms of Agreement when you sign up for a new service online, you skim over it without reading and just click ‘agree’ at the end. Christ told his followers to feed the poor, to love and cherish each other, to forgive and accept. Christ did not teach his followers to spew vitriol at gays, or to bomb abortion clinics. In fact, as I understand it, Christ came along specifically to start a new covenant with god because the rules of the Old Testament were no longer relevant, the rules so often quoted to justify that hatred of gays or liberals or Mexicans or any other group that makes you uncomfortable. So if you truly follow Christ, you should be about love and forgiveness and acceptance, and you would not give a damn about protecting your narrow view of traditional marriage, you would not complain about paying taxes to help those less fortunate than you, and you would certainly not condemn a woman who has already had to make a difficult choice.

There is no reason atheists can’t celebrate Christmas, we just concentrate on the good things and ignore that silly thing about the virgin birth. Christians and atheists can agree that there are a lot of great things about the holiday that don’t involve Christ. And really, even if you do believe in a two-thousand year old myth, does spending too much on a piece of electronics that nobody really needs glorify him?

So, we have an ancient holiday that celebrates family and togetherness and joy and love that really has nothing to do with the birth of the Messiah, and how do we celebrate it? We buy things.

We buy things we don’t need. We get up at 2 AM to wait for hours outside some store so we can rush in with a thousand other eager consumers hoping to snag one of a dozen new gadgets being sold for a ridiculous price. We shove and snarl and fight each other in a tribute to greed and consumption. Oh, sure, we pretend we do this out of generosity, and most of the time we do. But have you looked at the items being offered up on the alter of Excess this year? 9 out of 10 are electronics, flat screen TV’s and smart phones and touch screen tablets and game consoles, these are not gifts you give, these are gifts you buy for yourself, sometimes disguised a gift for your spouse.

Now, there is nothing wrong with buying something nice for someone you care about, especially if you have the resources to spare. But should you? Are you buying that gift because they really need it, or because it’s the Latest Thing? Will that gift actually improve the quality of their life, will it give them joy?

I don’t know, maybe I am just too jaded. But I would much rather seen gifts of jam than smart phones, gifts of hand knitted scarfs and hats than touch screen tablets, books of pictures of grand kids(a brilliant idea from a close friend) than flat screen TV’s. Plates of cookies, baskets of home made bath salts, Gramma’s fudge recipe.

This year I am giving my friends jars of home made jam. I put effort into this gift, I gave my time and my skills, this is not just something I picked out and payed for.

And from those people who are important to me, I would rather have the gift of their time. I want them to spend time with me, in a celebration of love and togetherness. Screw the gifts.

So that is the attack on Christmas I see. My family was never really religious, so Christ was never a part of the holiday. We celebrated all those wonderful things I spoke of earlier, love and joy and togetherness. I see Christmas turning into nothing more than an excuse to buy things. We start shopping earlier and earlier every year, with Thanksgiving and now even Halloween being trampled as Christmas makes its inexorable march to the sea, soon to invade the 4th of July.

And now, after a 12o0 word rant, I find I do not really know how to end this post, so I will simply say: I hope you and yours have a very happy holiday, however you choose to celebrate.