Grinchier than thou.

While John Gibson's and Bill O'Reilly's "War on Christmas" truly exists only in their own cavernous noggins, let me go ahead and own up: I really, really, really hate this time of year. Oh, I like winter. I love the cold weather and fires, the lights and tinsel are pretty, even the kitschy turbo-displays are amusing, and I'm always happy to get a few days off of work, but Christmas? Humbug. Why? Mostly it's the water-torture effect of hearing the same 15 songs everywhere I go FOR A SOLID MONTH EVERY GODDAMNED YEAR OF MY LIFE. They started piping them in to the bathroom at work just after Thanksgiving, for crying out loud. I can't even sit down and take a crap without my chestnuts roasting on an open fire.

I know this is a touch neurotic but, you know, it's my own neurosis and I'm sticking to it. Screw you, Bing Crosby. Anyhow, I actually like my family and my in-laws, so the holidays aren't remotely oppressive to me on that level. My humbuggery is mostly based around having "Rocking Around the Christmas Tree" or some other bit of treacly crap getting stuck in my head for hours at a time (dammit, I just did it again - aaaughhh, get it out! Get it out!). I honestly don't begrudge anybody celebrating Christmas however they see fit, though this insistence that private merchants use specific greetings is just downright bizarre. Apparently, Merry Christmas is the new fuck you.

So in this spirit, I'd like to note that boozy ol' Chris Hitchens has taken a short break from pointing out my deep personal love for Saddam Hussein to pen one barn-burningly grinchy column at Slate comparing December in America to every day in North Korea. 9/11 may have pushed Hitch over the edge of contrarian warmongering lunacy, but he's still one hell of a writer when he's annoyed. Behold.

[C]ompulsory worship and compulsory adoration can indeed become a touch wearying to the spirit. Our Christian enthusiasts are evidently too stupid, as well as too insecure, to appreciate this. A revealing mark of their insecurity is their rage when public places are not annually given over to religious symbolism, and now, their fresh rage when palaces of private consumption do not follow suit. The Fox News campaign against Wal-Mart and other outlets—whose observance of the official feast-day is otherwise fanatical and punctilious to a degree, but a degree that falls short of unswerving orthodoxy—is one of the most sinister as well as one of the most laughable campaigns on record. If these dolts knew anything about the real Protestant tradition, they would know that it was exactly this paganism and corruption that led Oliver Cromwell—my own favorite Protestant fundamentalist—to ban the celebration of Christmas altogether.

No believer in the First Amendment could go that far. But there are millions of well-appointed buildings all across the United States, most of them tax-exempt and some of them receiving state subventions, where anyone can go at any time and celebrate miraculous births and pregnant virgins all day and all night if they so desire. These places are known as "churches," and they can also force passersby to look at the displays and billboards they erect and to give ear to the bells that they ring. In addition, they can count on numberless radio and TV stations to beam their stuff all through the ether. If this is not sufficient, then god damn them. God damn them everyone.

Love it.