Happy Solstice!

Even though the solstice was technically two days ago, we’re just one day short of Christmas Eve, which in Scandinavia is the day of Santa’s appearance and the attendant gift exchange.

So there’s one thing you can tell children when they ask how Santa can deliver all the gifts in one night: He actually starts out on the 24th in Scandinavia. Plus he doesn’t visit the ungodly heathens in Africa and places like that. Although that little factoid may make the children cry. The one about Africa, not the one about Scandinavia.

Anywho, there’s been a lot of bellyaching here in the States about how we are no longer allowed to use the C-word in polite company, and must instead refer to Christmas as the “Winter Holiday.” And okay, it’s a bit PC to the extreme, but to some people it’s nothing less than another wave of atheists and communists assaulting the beaches of Fortress Jesus, dodging machine gun fire and mortar shells to Spread their Unbelief.

Those people should of course up their meds.

And ponder how the Solstice celebration–a frightened and above all direly serious attempt to appease the Gods and make the Sun come back–has been hijacked and mutilated over the ages until the majority of society is now associating Christmas with shopping, credit card bills, and faux bonhomie.

Things change. Not much you can do about it.

So with that thought, Merry Christmas, Happy Chanukah, Happy Kwanzaa, and above all, please make the sun come back, look, I’ll sacrifice a goat for you. Two goats? You want two goats to make the sun come back? Done!