All I want for Christmas is fun.
Among my obsessions is a certain penchant for things biographical, i.e. books, and this year I treated myself to a Christmas present: a biography on Oliver Cromwell, the Puritan revolutionary who chopped off the head of the sitting monarch, declared himself the dictatorial "Lord Protector" and assured, by his death, that North America, especially the colonies that would later become the United States, would pretty much be the chosen end-location for all the world's violently deluded Millenialist religious dogmatists who basically give us exactly the reputation we deserve these days as the global asshats and cockends that we allow to manipulate themselves into office.
Sadly, the days of this particular generation's Oliver Cromwells are waning down, and if you can stand to believe it, we have less than a month left of Republican rule over our spatial area. I understand that non-Americans read this site, but this one is primarily directed at the Yanks.
Upon taking power as the Lord Protector, Cromwell set about doing exactly what television specials and the Grinch have failed to do ever since: stealing Christmas. In fact, Cromwell was so completely offended by the very idea of fun that he forbade the celebration of any sort of Christmas at all, allowing only a single prayer service at the local church with the very express condition that everyone had no celebrating, silently returned home immediately afterwards and stomped on a kitten on the way out. Bear in mind that he also shut down the theaters, made singing for pleasure a criminal offense and even went so far as to outlaw buttons, which were, by that point, the last fun things left. If all you're left with are buttons, you can pretty much be assured that everything else is gone.
The really strange aspect of the Commonwealth period of English history is that Cromwell was never deposed or assassinated. Nobody even questioned it. Most people, in fact, learned to adapt, and the Puritan sect swelled with legitimate members. Eventually, Cromwell died, and his mild-mannered son, Dick, didn't see much of the point of inheriting the position of a guy who killed a king. Charles II came back to power and the period of his rule, known as the Restoration, is wildly accepted to be the most fun period of time ever, so much fun, in fact, that the only way to end the party was to burn down London entirely.
And here is where it gets relevant to you and I here in the United States of Whatever: the Puritans who agreed with Cromwell's hatred of fun were forced to the colonies, where they became literally our forebears. When they got here they, too, outlawed Christmas, and instead of roasting chestnuts they burnt witches, so American history is build and defined a sincere hatred of fun.
Here's the crazy thing: Despite the fact that we hate fun, we love it, too. We are credited with being the civilization that invented fun as a raison d'etre, the civilization that brought fun down from the salons of Versailles and made fun available for everyone. We got rid of slavery because they weren't having any fun, were they? We fought Hitler because he was against fun. The only proper castles we have are in theme parks, our culture's cuisine is defined by the Happy Meal and we even find consumerism fun, witness the fact that our commercials are usually the most entertaining aspect of television.
Americans were founded on haters of fun, and yet we still do it anyway.
In fact, even our political process is defined by fun. We call them "political parties," don't we? Yet, it seems that there's a full half of our society that actively hates pleasure of any sort. These people associate sex with sin, comic books the despoilers of America's youth and the video games... well, Thompson's opinions on video games would make Oliver Cromwell seem down right obliging.
Christmas is fun. So much fun, in fact, that even non-Christians get into the act. I've met more atheists who give me Christmas cards than actual Christians, in fact, Chris is an atheist and I can safely say that I have spent more on him for Christmas than any family member. A Buddhist friend of mine called me up last week to wish me Merry Christmas, and I wished him a happy Bodhi Day in return (never mind that my opinions religiously tend to actually be fairly Zen Buddhist in detail, but nowhere does it say I can't also eagerly enjoy ripping open wrapping paper). I've even found myself saying "Happy Hannukah" to people, not being Jewish myself and the people I'm talking to unlikely to be Jewish, not because I really want to celebrate Hannukah but because, god damn it, what if I miss somebody and I somehow deny them a little bit more fun? It's not denying my own beliefs or succombing to theirs, it's the neighborly thing to do. I want my neighbors to be having fun.*
That's the really awesome thing: The Christmas spirit is defined in being decent to everybody, especially those who aren't like you.
Every year about this time, Bill "Those Who Trespass" O'Reilly starts up his campaign to throw the fear that somebody, likely somebody brown, might be trying to take your Christmas away. He has somehow convinced his fans that saying "Happy Holidays" is, believe it or not, an attack on your freedoms, and that removing a Nativity set from a public place is worse than Auschwitz.
Before he leaves office, Mr. Bush has decided to leave us with untold levels of parting Christmas gifts, in the form of policy statements, rules clarifications, last minute appointments to minor positions and, oh, yeah, the pretty much free run on any and all money we have left thanks to bail-outs and blind corporate handouts with literally no elected oversight. Yet, here is the guy who was able to dupe the entire country by appealing to their sense of fun. He was the fun-but-dim cowboy who we wanted to have a beer with, remember? But somehow it all changed. Somehow over the course of eight, miserable, painful years, he's become the bitter shell of a dark time.
At some point during these last eight years it became an acceptable idea that only Christians of a very specific type can be wished a merry Christmas, and we let them make us feel guilty for wishing everyone some fun. Somebody in Nashville wrote a song called "Do They Know It's Christmas At All?", a mewling piece of pathetic, mildly racist jingo that suggests that unless you're celebrating good ol' White Anglo-Saxon Protestant Christmas, you must not be having fun.
Somewhere in the last eight years we forgot that fun can be had by anybody, with anybody, for any reason at all.
Then, I read yesterday that Mr. Obama is appointing... gasp... a scientist... to the Environmental Protection Agency. In one brief moment, I suddenly realized that for 8 years we've been just like the people under Cromwell's reign. We've forgotten what it's like to have fun. We've forgotten what it's like wear buttons. It seems like a minor thing but that scientist is going to have a hell of a lot more fun in that job than some Harvard MBA would. Why? Because he finds science to be his own particular joy, and he's going to be able to do a whole hell of a lot of it.
So, while you're unwrapping those video games and you're sucking on those candy canes, wish somebody a happy holiday. It doesn't matter which one it is. Say Christmas, they don't care. Say Kwanzaa. Say Rama-Lama-Ding-Dong. Does it matter? You're wishing a merry "Merry".
Have some fun. Now.
*Fun story: One time I was successful, and said "Happy Hannukah" to the right old lady in the grocery store. I have a particular weakness for old ladies, and I will never hesitate to find an opportunity to cheer them up somehow. I love grandmothers, in a purely Boy Scout kind of way. She beamed and we had a terrific chat then and there about the preparations. I explained I'm not Jewish but she invited me over anyway, and gave me a terrific loaf of challah bread. I still see her from time to time and I love the memory of that one little moment.
