'Tis the Season to Be Ranty
Oh, how I hate Christmas. What's this, you say? You hate the most wonderful time of the year? You hate the time of Peace on Earth, Good Will to All, God bless us everyone, merriness and good cheer, lifting up the meek and the lowly, fa la la la la la la la la.... Well, no. Not exactly. All right, not at all. And yet, oh, how I hate it. Sensing some conflict here? Good. Because I'm loaded with it--not unlike the season of Christmas, as observed in these United States of America. In fact, I've got a lifetime's worth of joys and concerns, complaints and plaudits, raptures and regrets, heart and spleen aching to be vented. Good thing I've got a blog. I have decided to make December the month of Christmas. And yes, I'm aware that, outside of this blog, it already is. But back to me. I'm dedicating my blog this month to taking apart Christmas: the pluses, the minuses, the excesses, the recesses, the blessings and abominations and exploitations and neg...