My beef with Christmas

First off, I've never said "Bah, humbug!" once in my life, and Ebenezer Scrooge was a character in a piece of sentimental fluff that had more to do with Guatemalan independence than it did with any kind of biblical Christianity. And it had nothing to do with Guatemalan independence. So don't waste your time or mine calling me a Scrooge. Or a Grinch, for that matter, or any of the other names it's become acceptable to call people who don't like the way things are.

My biggest problem with Christmas as it's currently practiced is that it's based on what a particular group of people did in the 1800s. It's about Currier and Ives prints and A Christmas Carol. It's tradition for its own sake, and that's something for which I have no patience at all.

Watching the same movies and singing the same songs every year doesn't mean you have the "Christmas spirit"; it means you watch the same movies and sing the same songs every year. If that's what you like, fine, but let's not pretend that there's some virtue in repetition. Besides, I've read the Bible several times, and I haven't seen anything about a Christmas spirit.

There's a really good part about a baby, though.