American Holidays or, "No, really, not everyone celebrates Christmas."

So, I work in a multi-racial place for the government. There are a lot of people from other countries here, and a lot of them have no idea about Christian holidays like Christmas and Easter. So, they ask me. This is probably due to the fact that I'm easy to talk to and amazingly beautiful, but I like to think that it's also because I'm white.

I've explained that in the Christian world, Easter really is a lot more important that Christmas. Christmas is pretty much a secularized holiday, so I'm always surprised when people get a bee in their bonnet about it. I mean, if you really want to keep the sanctity of Christmas, then let's try to not kill anyone at Wal-Mart this year while you're pushing people out of the way (in the name of Jesus?) in order to get that $40.00 X-Box Kinect. I don't like Christmas, and the Wal-Mart tramplings are pretty much the reason why. Actually, what the Wal-Mart tramplings represent is really more my problem, but the dead people really upset me. Is an ipad really worth a human life? Is it?

Anyway, this always leads to wondering what I'm doing for Christmas, they always look a little disappointed that I'm just going to my brother's house, and we're going to have dinner together, and then the kids can open gifts. When pressed as to why I'm not surrounded by my huge extended family, I explain that they don't celebrate Christmas.

Well, they don't ignore Christmas. I think my buddhist cousin and her fiance put up some garland and fairy lights, and my unitarian Auntie puts out a Hanukkah bush for her granddaughter and lights some candles. My gay cousin and his boyfriend both head 'down the pub' to hang with their friends, and that's it. I mean, I don't have a huge family, and that's what we do. If my brother's in-laws didn't make such a big fuss about it (mostly because they have a tradition of opening packages of socks and underwear every Christmas), Christmas wouldn't be a big deal in my house at all.

I have to say, though, I have a lot of fun looking for gifts. Especially for my geekier friends. You wouldn't believe the different ways one can make something look like a blue police box!