The Holiday You're Referring to is Christmas

Christmas is one of my favorite times of the year. I really do enjoy all aspects of it. I love to buy gifts for my family, I love Christmas parties, I love the decorations, and I love the reflective and celebratory sides of its religious origins. Having such a positive view of it all, it baffles me that Christmas can also stir up such controversy.

Whether you like it or not, you’ve probably heard about the so-called “War on Christmas”. It’s on Fox News, it’s on talk radio, and it even has its own (terrible) website. They lament the efforts of the “elite media” and the “secular left” to destroy Christmas as we know it. Of course this is entirely absurd. Christmas is absolutely everywhere. It’s impossible to go anywhere in this country without seeing Christmas trees, Christmas lights, Santa Clauses, and red and green decorations. It’s on the radio in the form of Christmas music, it’s on TV in the form of Christmas-themed movies and shows. And to kick it off, it’s been around since October. Clearly, if there is a war on Christmas, the aggressors are losing. Badly.

There is, however, one shred of sanity among the absurdity of the War on Christmas. In fact, it’s probably this grain of truth the rest of the insanity is built upon. There is an aversion to actually using the word “Christmas” to describe all of the, well, Christmas that surrounds us. It’s not universal, but it’s prominent enough to be noticed. Now, I don’t believe it grew out of some malicious lefty conspiracy to undermine religion as a whole. Rather, I believe it came out of neurosis. An anxious fear that, God (or Mother Nature or no one) forbid, we might say “Merry Christmas” to the wrong person and (gasp) offend them! Now certainly there are a few who actually oppose Christmas and wish it would go away, but they are a minute portion of the US population.

The Gallup organization reports that while about 80% of Americans consider themselves Christian, a whopping 94% celebrate Christmas. And that’s not really news. It merely puts numbers to something many of us already know. There are plenty of people who put up Christmas trees and decorations and gather with family without so much a thought of the baby Jesus. As many as 80% of non-Christians in America observe Christmas says Gallup. A former boss of mine, a born-and-bread New York City Jew, adored Christmas and even started getting a tree in recent years. Christmas is, for many people, not a religious holiday at all, even to some  who consider themselves to be Christians.

Given these stats, it really surprises me that both sides of this Christmas culture war seem to thrive each year. But at the same time, one seems to feed the other. Those who worry that the 6% that doesn’t celebrate Christmas might feel left out become emboldened in their efforts when faced with billboards reading “Put Christ back into Christmas”. So “Happy Holidays” becomes their requisite greeting. Meanwhile, those on the other side of the battle become threatened that Christmas is being dismantled so they redouble their efforts to assert it as the predominant holiday of the season.

All you have to do to see that both sides of this tiff are delusional is go to your local shopping district. There are decorations absolutely everywhere and, rest assured, you can find Santa somewhere nearby. No one is going to mistake any of this as anything other than Christmas. So those worried about offending ought to take note. This is distinctively Christmas and the vast majority of Americans observe it on some level. It’s OK to use the word. Frankly, it’s silly to put an ad on TV that features all of these obvious symbols of Christmas but to intentionally avoid specifically mentioning Christmas itself. That said, there is value in recognizing the other traditions of the season. This is especially true in more diverse places. Living in New York City, there is a lot of attention paid to Hanukkah and why not? (Maybe you weren’t aware, but New York has a high Jewish population.) But you’re not fooling anyone with your “holiday” ad that features Santa and jingle bell music.

And for those who think Christmas is being obliterated, do you really need any more proof that it isn’t going anywhere than its pervasive presence? If you’re truly concerned about “the true meaning of Christmas”, I suggest spending time making it a more religious experience for yourself rather than expressing exasperation that others aren’t acknowledging it at all. In fact, there is evidence that many Americans may be doing just that. Gallup notes that 51% of American Christmas observers view it as a “strongly religious holiday”. And that number has been rising since the 90s.

Today, the American Christmas is an institution. We buy gifts, we put up admittedly strange decorations that have absolutely nothing to do with the religious aspects of the holiday, we party, we feast, and we sing songs and watch movies that we associate with the season. And there are plenty of us who celebrate and reflect on God's gift of Jesus Christ to the world as well. Honestly, whatever combination of these things you partake in is up to you. Given the myriad of sources that have contributed to what we observe as Christmas in the US today, no one has a corner on the market. Christians may have started the holiday and have the most reverence for it, but when you share something with others you are bound to give up a little bit of your control over it. And there’s nothing wrong with that. As a Christian myself, it only warms my heart that Christmas might inspire joy and a spirit of giving in others. And I see nothing wrong with Christmas playing a large role in supporting our economy (so long as we keep the retailers from owning it). Whatever your tradition may be, whatever you impetus for celebrating it, Christmas is big enough for everyone. So why not call it by name?

Merry Christmas!

The Twelve Weeks of Christmas

I have a problem. I call it Early Christmas. Being myself a member of the “Media Elite”, I try to avoid blaming the media for the ails of society. But in this case, the media shares a large chunk of the blame. The rest of the blame goes to the general American public, or as we Media Elites call them, Dumb Americans. (We don’t really call them that, but you probably wouldn’t understand the actual term we use anyway.)

Every last one of my Facebook friends is acutely aware of the vitriol I have toward pre-Thanksgiving Christmas ads, decorations, and music. My aggravation has been especially acute this year as the very first Christmas-themed ad to be shoved down my throat aired BEFORE Halloween. Granted, it was an ad for Avon which relies on orders placed far out in advance, but I just could not handle jingly music in mid-October. It only got worse from there.

It seams that advertisers now define “restraint” in jumping the gun on Christmas as waiting until after Halloween rather than Thanksgiving. I didn’t see too many other Christmas ads through the rest of October, but on November 1 all bets were off. Red bows, Christmas trees, Santa, and jingly music abound on TV. I couldn’t get through an evening of TV watching without getting some cliche Christmas song trapped in my brain. Meanwhile, three decorative pumpkins sit outside our apartment while leaves of all colors float down gently from the trees. It’s disjointed and confusing. What happened to Thanksgiving? What did it do to deserve this kind of treatment?

Like most mental issues we experience as adults, this can likely be traced back to my childhood. When I was a boy (please be sure to imagine me saying that phrase in my best old man voice) November was a time for gourds and corn stocks, some of which were economically re-purposed after Halloween. There were pilgrims and horns of plenty. Orange and yellow and brown adorned my elementary school. Nobody so much as mentioned Christmas. Oh sure, there were a few folks quietly doing their shopping ahead of the holiday rush, but the key word there is “quietly”. We looked forward to Thanksgiving. We anticipated the food and the family and the football. And then -- after we had stuffed ourselves like good Americans and passed out with a game on the TV -- the next morning, it was on. It was time for Christmas, so watch out! Black Friday meant it was time to get out the advent calendar and start buying like there was no tomorrow. The tree usually went up the following weekend. And with all of that came the ads on TV. Then, and only then did the red bows and Christmas trees and Santa and the jingly music on TV fit into the context of what was going on in real life. The leaves were down. And where I come from, snow often coated the ground. It all came together so perfectly.

There’s actually a term for what’s happened since then. Christmas creep. And we all know why it happens. Retailers want to get people shopping earlier and earlier, hoping that they won’t stop just because they’ve checked off everything on their list. Whether this actually works or not is debatable. But even if people aren’t actually buying more, they’re at least buying into the notion that we ought to start celebrating Christmas earlier and earlier. Businesses trying to press us into Christmas is one thing, people actually doing it is another. I don’t recall anyone putting up their decorations so early before this year. I honestly can’t think of a single person who put their Christmas tree up before Thanksgiving. But this year through the immeasurable magic of Facebook, I know of at least 3 people who have already put up their tree and lights.

Now a lot of people freakin’ love Christmas and they want to get started with it as soon as possible. But here’s the thing. I freakin’ love Christmas too. And part of it for me is that anticipation. When Black Friday hits, it’s on! On that day I am off and running. I’m actually probably slightly (read: extremely) obnoxious about loving Christmas. But having it slowly creep in before Halloween undermines that anticipation and, frankly, runs the risk of burning the whole thing out before we even get close to December 25th. I know how I am with Christmas. People should not have to put up with that crap for more than a month.

I suppose what really disturbs me about this is that I’d like to think people see right through obvious tactics by marketers and advertisers. But with Facebook posts and Tweets about people “being too excited to wait” and “embracing Christmas in November”, it's clear people are doing exactly what the advertisers want them to. There’s an awareness of the pressure of Early Christmas, but at the same time people embrace it. I hate to tell you, but just because you’re aware that you’re willingly being a corporate shill doesn’t make you any less of a shill. Your shilliness is still abundant.

But, in spite of all my Early Christmas rage being focused into apoplectic Facebook posts and Tweets, up have gone the trees and lights. Strangely, I am unable to control peoples’ minds. Black Friday cannot get here fast enough so I can join the insanity instead of railing against it. In the meantime, the best I can do is mute the TV when Christmas ads come on, write a sardonic blog about my plight, and take a sip of eggnog to comfort myself. Eggnog!? I mean HOT APPLE CIDER! Curse you, Early Christmas!

Occupy Wall Street and the Blue Collar Baby Boomer

I’m a pretty pragmatic guy. I also tend to gravitate toward a “live and let live” philosophy. So it’s enigmatic to me how much venom has been spewed regarding the Occupy Wall Street protests. After all, it’s our first amendment right to peaceably assemble and “address the government for a redress of grievances." There have been a few skirmishes, but by and large, these have indeed been peaceful protests. If you dispute that, take a look at what London went through earlier this year and get back to me.

Still, we’ve seen a rash of angry reactions -- mainly from conservatives -- to these protests both on social media and major media outlets. Lots of calls to “get a job” and “stop asking for handouts”. Plenty of name calling, too. Politicians have even gotten in on the act. (Call me crazy, but it seems rather foolish for any politician to tell anyone to “get a job” in the current economy.) The irony is that it seems this movement has gotten more attention through these rants than on its own merits.

Of course, the merits of OWS have been debated ad nauseam. The group does lack a specific and well-crafted message. But without major corporate funding it can be difficult to craft a superior PR campaign. The diversity of the people involved is broad, and perhaps that’s part of the problem as well. Detractors have zeroed in on the least desirable of those on board with the movement. I, however, have found myself drawn specifically to some of the stories that appear on the Tumblr site, “We Are the 99 Percent”. While there are stories on the site that are arguably closer to eye rolling than heart wrenching, there are some that struck a deep cord with me.

Before I go on, let me tell you a story. There was a fellow named Greg attending college in the early 1970s on an athletic scholarship. He wasn’t some big star, just a kid with some talent that was helping to put him through school. About 2 years into college, he was injured. He lost the scholarship because he could no longer compete. He weighed his options and, at the time, it seemed most prudent to go back home to help run his father’s small retail business rather than scrape up the money to stay in school.

By the early 80s, a mall had opened up in town. Business at the two retail stores dwindled. Greg’s father decided to retire and hand the business over to his two children. Greg and his sister smartly consolidated the two retails stores into one and re-branded. This kept the business going, but Greg was unable to make enough money running the store to support his young family. He took a second, blue-collar job during the day and would head to the store each night and on weekends to crunch the numbers and place orders.

With the 90s came big-box stores, further cutting into the store’s profits. It became evident the time he was putting into his store was no longer worthwhile, so Greg and his sister decided to sell. Greg focused his energy on his day job for a good many years thereafter. At one point, his employer went out of business and he was left unemployed. Undaunted, he worked for himself for a period until he was able to find another blue collar job in the same business. All the while, supporting his wife and two sons.

As the years went by, the physical labor took its toll on Greg. His physical health along with his ability to work declined. He works through the pain because he has to. His retirement fund took a massive hit in the recession. Various medical issues have taken him out of work for extended periods of time. But he presses on because he needs his health insurance. Now, he must go in for yet another surgery. His small business employer has no short-term disability insurance so he will have to pay his insurance premium out of pocket while he’s out of work recovering from the surgery, further cutting into his already dwindled cash reserves. 

It’s not hard to guess that Greg is my dad. He’s a good man with a very strong work ethic. He’s worked hard his entire life, so much so that it’s left him crippled. His work allowed my mom to stay home and raise me and my brother. Both of us struggled with dyslexia and attention deficit disorder growing up, so the environment my parents created together gave us a fighting chance that many kids with learning disabilities would never have. Ultimately, my dad gave up his physical health to support his family and so his sons could have opportunities he did not. 

So when I think about what the people involved in Occupy Wall Street are angry about, I think about a man who worked hard his entire life who really should retire but can’t afford to because of his need for health care and because his retirement investments were burned up by a market crash he had no control over. Knowing that there are millions like him, I can look past the trust-fund hipsters waving “Capitalism is evil!” signs. Every movement has its kooks. Just as you can’t assert every stock trader and bank executive is greedy and undeserving, you can’t assume every (or even most) OWS protester and supporter is lazy and wants a handout. What most of them want is what most people in this country want: to work and to be productive and to know that if they do things right they won’t end up getting screwed by the system they were part of.

My parents and others in similar situations are by no means perfect. Honestly, financial mistakes are easy to make, especially when you have less to fall back on. But no one who worked their entire life and made far more good choices than bad should be in the position my father is now in. And I’ll fully admit that this is a broad-based problem and that, like the protestors, I do not know how to fix it. But that’s why we elect public officials. We hire them to address broad-based issues that affect large swaths of the population. That’s what government is! And we have a right to address them for a redress of grievances. (Hmm, that sounds familiar.)

While overall there is disagreement about who is to blame, the bottom line is that there is real anger in this country that the system is working extremely well for a few while not at all for many, many others. This was never more apparent to me than when my life-long Republican dad, a man who often bemoaned his tax dollars being used to support welfare, said to me that he believes the Occupy Wall Street movement is on to something. In spite of its shortcomings, any movement that stirs up so much attention is likely rooted in something worth examining. We may need to sort through the clutter to find it, but I’m certain it’s there. I need look no further than my own father to find it.

The NEW New new Facebook

As pretty much anyone who is reading this blog already knows, Facebook changed today. Facebook has garnered a reputation of changing itself fairly often. But today was the most substantial change of their UI (user interface) that I can recall. And, as anyone who’s logged into Facebook today knows, most users are unhappy with this substantial change. I only saw one or two posts from people who actively like the new interface. And then there is a small but hardy group who are annoyed by those complaining. They seem indifferent to the change itself and argue that no one should complain about something that is free to use. Is that fair?

According to its homepage, “Facebook is free... and always will be.” When Netflix changed its pricing structure earlier this year people were outraged and made their indignation known to the company. Just this past week Netflix distributed an apology letter from their CEO and in the same breath announced they are rebranding their DVD subscription service as Qwickster. Again, their customers were annoyed. The company has lost large numbers of subscribers and cut its subscriber projections by a million users. But Netflix customers pay to use the service. So can you really compare Netflix with Facebook?

Facebook may be “free” upfront. But you absolutely pay a price to use it. Facebook makes money by selling ads. But not just by feeding ads out en masse to anyone and everyone. They use the very information you post on the site to target you. They have the ability to sell advertising to very specific demographics based on your personal information that you willingly enter into the site. They also keep tabs on things you post and even monitor your use of other sites. They KNOW what you want to buy and make big bucks off of that. Of course we still see lots of ads that are completely irrelevant to us. My favorite is the “Mom finds one simple trick to lose weight/eliminate wrinkles/make big money in the stock market.” (Evidently, there are lots of very innovative moms out there.) But rest assured, Facebook is watching you and your tastes and habits and making money on them. Why do you think there are so many changes to their privacy policy all the time? So Facebook may be free in terms of money, but there is a cost to it.

So, you are paying to use Facebook with your information. In return, you are getting a service. Usually, if you are paying for a service and are unsatisfied with the quality of that service you have three options: Keep using it anyway; Stop using it; Complain to the service provider. A friend of mine commented today noting that the squeaky wheel gets the oil. That is, there is really no good reason to NOT complain if you don’t like the changes Facebook has made. Who cares if it’s free? And remember, you are still giving them something that they need so they have a vested interest in not alienating millions of their users (ah hem, Netflix).

It’s been noted plenty of times that every time Facebook makes modifications to its UI people complain. In general, people don’t like changess they didn’t ask for explicitly. But companies -- especially social media companies -- have a vested interest in staying ahead of the curve. Look what happened to MySpace/Friendster/AOL/Prodigy... shall I go on? So clearly, Facebook is trying to keep itself relevant. Like Netflix, they knew very well that some people will be pissed off when they implement their change. But the comic below describes the change Facebook has made as a “mild inconvenience”.

But if the change they’ve made undermines some of the basic reasons people use their site (as I believe it does), well then the users have a valid complaint. A good litmus test for this kind of thing is to check back in a month and see where people are at. Most of the mild changes that initially cause an uproar simmer down after a few weeks once people get used to them. The difference here is that the new UI is forcing people to consume the very information they come to Facebook for in a totally different way. A month from now if people are still actively aggravated, Facebook ought to take note.

Now, is the new UI really all that bad? The info is still all there. But, in my opinion, it’s fragmented and overly complex. One reason for Twitter’s popularity is its simplicity. There’s really not much to it. What you see is what you get. There’s no algorithm deciding what you see and what you don’t see like in the new Facebook. And while Twitter sometimes does make changes, they’re smart about it. Perhaps Facebook was trying to “pull an Apple” with a “game changer”. The problem is, you need a real visionary to make that work. And even Apple has screwed up that strategy. Just look at the new version of Final Cut Pro X. Overall, Facebook does need to keep its 750 million+ users happy. If they don’t, they could become the next MySpace/Friendster/AOL/Prodigy... shall I go on?

So to those who are annoyed by the Facebook redesign (a group I happen to belong to), I say keep up the noise. They certainly won’t do anything about it if no one makes their opinion known. And the folks who insist that no one should complain because you don’t pay money to use Facebook should take inventory of how much personal data they’ve freely given to the site. When you add that up, simply providing a good user interface sounds like a screaming deal for Mark Zuckerberg.

A Republican Who Votes Democrat?

My wife Sarah will tell you that I am pretty well politically versed. I keep up with the goings on of national, state, and local politics. I vote. I have opinions. But, against the usual trend of people becoming more conservative as they get older, I’ve gone in a different direction.

Friends of mine from high school, college, and even grad school knew me as “Alex the Republican”. It’s been a long time since I’ve identified myself as that. But nor do I consider myself a bleeding heart liberal. (That’s still a label that makes my skin crawl.) Nevertheless, I find myself relating to the Republican party less and less these days. Certainly that’s due in no small part to the party’s decisive shift to the extreme right. But I’ve also made a shift. Not necessarily left or right though.

Sometime last year, Sarah and I found ourselves on a train coming home from Manhattan. There were two young women on the train speaking much louder than was necessary considering they were sitting next to each other. But it was the content of their conversation that got to us. To sum it up, they were gloating over how easily the were able abuse the system and avoid punishment for it. As we exited the train and came up the station stairs, my left-leaning, Democrat registered wife turned to me and said wryly, “I think I’m a Republican now.”

My early political leanings were largely influenced by my father and grandparents. I had developed a strong “bootstraps” mentality through high school and college. Also, how could lower taxes ever be a bad thing? But then I moved to New York City. And while some might simply write me off as having been immersed in a sea of liberalism, unable to fight off its seductive powers, it was much less dramatic than that.

Living so close to so many different kinds of people has a truly profound impact on you. You have to learn how to get along, at least on some level. And you have to acknowledge that you’re not in a bubble. When you live on a quarter acre lot and spend your entire commute isolated in a car, it’s easier to (probably subconsciously) THINK you’re in a bubble. But when you’re stacked on top of each other, riding a crowded train with 1000 of your closest friends to work, you can’t deny that your actions affect other people. And their actions affect you. And that goes for anywhere, not just densely packed New York. It’s just easier to see here.

It’s also hard to ignore how many different kinds of people there are in the world. You’re face to face, literally, with people from just about every corner of the globe, every level of income, every social class, every philosophy, every religion (yes, even conservative Christians, even in NYC). It’s much harder to isolate yourself among your own kind here -- although we do try pretty hard. So, in all of this you have to figure out how to get along with everyone else. Sometimes it’s not pretty, but we make it work for the most part. And I think we’re better people for it.

So it’s this aversion to the “bubble mentality” that has played the largest role in my evolving politics. I have a particularly negative response to hard core libertarianism. The idea that everyone should keep all of their money and do exactly what they want with it without restriction would certainly work if you did in fact live in a bubble. But most of us live in communities. Some of us in very large cities with millions of people. There are resources we have to share. Period. Proximity amplifies your impact on others and others’ impact on you. So for me, it makes sense for things that benefit the community to be funded with taxes.

Moreover, there are things that we as a society generally agree on. We should provide police and fire protection. We should provide public education. We should have a network of transportation. We should have parks and public spaces. While you’ll always be able to dig and find a few folks who disagree on providing these things through tax dollars, on a baseline level the vast majority of us -- especially in cities -- support it. The degree of how to implement these things is often debated. But I’ve found myself on the side that supports more rather than less because, as noted, we don’t live in a bubble. Happier people make a happier city. So yes, build that park that I’ll never use. Run a train to a neighborhood I’ll never live in. When others benefit, so do I because we’re in proximity to each other.

Now before you think I’m going down the “slippery slope of socialism”, I still believe very much in the free market. So the concept of community must be balanced appropriately with one’s ability to make money and spend money as one pleases. People need to be allowed to innovate. When people can innovate and profit from it, new and useful things come to the market. This moves us all forward, so it should be encouraged.

So let’s see where I stand. I’m a registered republican that usually votes democrat. I believe in fiscal responsibility and spending within our means but support urban planning, public transit and a health care system that is accessible to everyone. I think everyone who makes their home in this country should speak or learn to speak English but would love to see comprehensive immigration reform that recognizes this as a country of immigrants. I have mixed feelings on gay marriage but unequivocally believe in full partnership rights however you define it. I think we should fix our budget woes through budget cuts AND tax revenue. I believe that public assistance is abused regularly and that my tax dollars are too often wasted on it... but I also believe that there are people who are in dire need of help and they shouldn’t be punished because of some bitches on a train bragging about working the system.

I think the biggest thing that has changed within me is that I’ve truly come to understand that one is not all. One person does not represent an entire class, race or group. And one class, race or group does not get to decide what’s right for all. We have to compromise. We have to learn to live together. And since no political party embodies this specific belief system my only choice of what to call myself really is independent. Maybe it’s cliche, but I consider that to be moving neither left nor right, but forward.

If you don't have anything to say, don't say anything at all.

Back in the days when MySpace (or "My________" as it's now known) I would blog from time to time. After the Great Exile of 2007 to Facebook, I stopped. Mostly out of laziness since Facebook doesn't offer any kind of blog platform. So here I am, nearly four years later, realizing I have lots of thoughts to share. Status updates and Tweets fulfill some of my need to vomit my inner monolog out to the world, but only to a limited extent. I have much more to give than 140 characters will allow. Then again, does anyone really need to hear my inner monolog?

I became accustomed to sharing my world view with the masses back in college when I had a show on our campus radio station. Each Tuesday night if there was a particular issue that was grinding my gears, I would open up the mic and address said issue (hopefully) with a dash of insight and humor. In the several years following college, I found myself gagged and bound with no outlet. But then came social media. Blogs led the way, but were soon supplanted by brevity encouraging status updates and Tweets. I went with the crowd.

The interesting thing is, this forced brevity served me well. Not only did it force me to cut out the fat, but it also taught me a valuable lesson. In a play on the old adage, my mantra has become: If you don't have anything to say, don't say anything at all. That is, if you're going to say something, make sure it's relevant or interesting or insightful or pithy or SOMETHING. Otherwise, don't bother.

Certainly, no one is actively seeking out my opinions or musings on life. If you're reading this, it's likely because you know me or because someone who knows me linked this blog. So the least I can do is make what I have to say, well, relevant or interesting or insightful or pithy or SOMETHING. It should be more than just my inner monolog vomited out over the airwaves as 21-year-old Alex likely did far too often. I will also refrain from adorning this blog with rotating clip art. It's the least I can do.