The Agnostic Pulpit: The Truth about Christmas

The materialistic American Christmas is a huge pain in the ass for many of us. We spend too much, drink too much, eat too much, and act like fools. In the United States, let’s remember, it’s all about money. If you live there and forget that, they will eat you alive, even at Christmas.

The churches love all the media coverage of Christmas because, sooner or later, stress and depression will drive many people into the comforting arms and out-stretched palms of the church. Just as religion rides the shoulders of commerce, so business exploits Christmas as the best shopping season of the year. This unholy alliance of religion and industry stimulates my poetic spirit, and so I offer, in addition to my wishes to all for a few serenely happy holidays, the following poem

Jolly old Saint Nick pigs out at Christmas time.
Every child goes nuts on too much sugar.
Sister Sally’s drunk on gin and lime.
Our credit limits stretch too far.
Supper, long neglected, turns to slime.

Save the tissue paper to feed the fire
As gaily we burn the whole house down.
Vapid songs and poems make us tire,
Each verse we sing makes Daddy frown,
It seems like Mommy’s sitting on a briar.

All around the blizzard piles the snow
Making getting out of here too slow.
Every present fails to please and so
Now it’s off to church, the crowning blow.


(Julian I. Taber, Ph.D. is author of Addictions Anonymous: Outgrowing Addiction with a Universal, Secular Program of Self-Development: ISBN 978-1-60145-647-2, or go to: http://www.booklocker.com/books/3717.html)

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