I'd be merry, but I'm Hebrew...

Is Mistletoe a Christmas olive branch?

I woke up earlier this Sunday morning than I should have and started catching up on my blog-reading. When I came across this post from Neil's blog, which is always entertaining (no talking penis this time, but entertaining nonetheless), I read this line, "It DOES bother me that most of the complainers about the 'War on Christmas' come from conservative commentators such as Bill O’Reilly and John Gibson." Add CNN's Lou Dobbs to that list of the profoundly stupid...

First of all, correct me if I'm wrong, but don't we have a real war going on? And doesn't it diminish that little conflict in Iraq to use the retarded phrase, "War on Christmas?" It's not like people are laying roadside bombs because someone said "Happy Holidays."

And the more I think about this "War on Christmas" thing, the more I begin to feel like it's really thinly veiled Antisemitism. These aren't people who are pissed off about "political correctness" for Kwanzaa or some Islamic holiday (since there isn't really one right now) or because a Hindu doesn't have anything exciting to do this season. These are people who don't want to have to accommodate their speech because it may not be respectful of Jews, who are celebrating an entirely different holiday at this time.

And these "news commentators" aim to create stupid issues like this to drive wedges between people, to make people--not only different--but disrespectful of those differences. As though, because someone is different, it's an assault on who they are, and, therefore, by saying Happy Holidays, someone is not being respectful, but rather is giving up who they are for who I am.

And, none of that is even remotely true.

When someone says, "Happy Holidays" to me or "Happy Hanukkah," I appreciate it. When I see one of those screens they flash on TV with "Happy Hanukkah," I'm touched that they thought enough about my holidays, even though I'm in the considerable minority, to say something nice like that.

But, I'm not an idiot. I know me and "my peeps" are just 2% of the population. So, when I get a "Merry Christmas," I don't get bent out of shape. I just smile and say, "You too."

"Oh, and, you can pack those Hanukkah candles in a plastic bag."

It's beginning to feel a lot like time to hit the iPod...

I realize that most people would have me drawn and quartered for this, but here's the thing.

I hate Christmas music.

It's not that I hate Christmas. Although I do feel bad for religious Christians who have had Hallmark destroy what was once an actual religious holiday, I'm really ambivalent about the holiday.

I like the lights.

Well, the white and red ones.

The rainbow colored ones, however...sorry. Gaudy.

But the red lights and the white lights, very pretty.

I like the giving nature of the season, although I wonder why the other 11 months don't matter.

I even like It's a Wonderful Life, although I don't know why Jimmy Stewart doesn't learn his lesson after seeing what his life is like without him every single year.

But the music, the fucking music, drives me batty.

It's not that I'm Jewish. I mean, my mother's Jewish and she can't get enough of the Christmas music. In fact, if I go home for the holidays, it's more likely that I'll hear the music in our Jewish home than anywhere else.

And it's obviously not that I'm a Scrooge. Like I said before, I kind of like the season.

So, today, I started thinking about why I have this viseral reaction to Christmas music and this is what I came up with. It's The Gap's fault.

When I was in high school, I worked for The Gap for two years. That annoying kid who would welcome you to the store and immediately address your needs or remember the last time you were there and what you bought, yeah, that was me. One of the side benefits of a disturbingly good memory. The reason you got "greeted" wasn't just because the company (that's what we called it, "the company" -- very 1984, I know) wanted you to feel comfortable in the store, it was because the likelihood of a properly greeted shop lifter continuing to shop lift was exponentially smaller. At least according to "The Company."

It was a good job and, frankly, I still own clothes I bought while I worked for the company. The discount was wicked good. To this day, I still feel bad paying full price for anything in the store.

However, during "Holiday"---which is what The Company calls it---everyone's schedule increased. I worked an ungodly number of hours then. And the whole time, the whole fucking time, that stupid ass Christmas music tape would blast through the speaker system over and over and over.

Nothing, and I mean nothing can ruin you forever for Christmas music than hearing it every damn day, all day, for over a month.

No one was happier for the 26th.