The Laziest (And Most Pointless?) Seasonal Message Yet

For a self-styled "radical" I'm a major sucker for tradition. How else to explain that fact that this blog (such as it is) only springs to life but once a year for the festive season with a duo of seasonal posts retreading much the same territory as the year before?

Nevertheless people (that is to say one single person) tell me that they enjoy this stuff and who am I too disappoint my core audience? (Apart from anything else she knows where I live.)

As I suggested above these rarely cover new territory, constituting little more than a thinly veiled excuse to convey seasonal greetings to those who continue to still visit this blog, however rarely. Rather than insulting your intelligence (the only person I have any confidence will read this has a PhD for FSM's sake) allow me to summarise the key points of the Disillusioned kid's idiosyncratic position on Christmas:

1. Christmas is not, contrary to what you were taught at school, really a Christian festival. Rather it is a much older pagan celebration "hijacked" (the more charitable among you might prefer the term "borrowed") as part of efforts to convert the masses to the upstart religion; therefore
2. Christians have no monopoly on celebrating at this time of year and us atheists can enjoy the tofurkey without feeling hypocritical; and
3. The so-called "War on Christmas" is an intellectual nonsense promoted by a virulent cultural right-wing which exert undue influence on large swathes of the mainstream media (notably tabloids like the Mail)

Seems sensible, no? Good. Now we've got that out of the way we can all get back to the important business of mindless hedonism and drinking.

Happy Christmas, Chrismukkah, Dies Natalis Solis Invicti, Duckmass, Festivus, Hannukah, Hogmany, Holiday, HumanLight, Koruchun, Kwanza, Marxmas, New Year, Saturnalia, Winter Solstice, Winterval, Xmas, Yalda and/or Yule! (Other holidays are available. Probably.)

Previous years: 2011, 2010, 2009, 2008, 2007, 2006, 2005, 2004

Happy Xmas (War is Over) 2012

Marmal near Mazar-e-Sharif, Afghanistan

Bethlehem, Occupied Palestine

Gardermoen, Norway

Previous years: 2006, 2007,2008, 2009, 2010, 2011