This has been building in my head over the last couple of years. Its been building, slowly, and as we approach the Holiday Season, its in the front of my mind again. So... I thought I'd share. *smiles* Just to let y'all know what's in my mind before the season of disagreement begins again.

Its a topic that some find a little touchy, I know... so read with patience, and please don't go flame on at the end of it...



PCU.

Many of you, I'm sure, are familiar with the movie. *smiles* Its one of my favorite college movies. I know most people prefer Animal House, but I think I'm just a tad too young to feel its true relevance. PCU, however, hits on all of the social humor of my college age... oh so specifically our era of political correctness.

Don't get me wrong... I think political correctness had its place. To a certain degree, it was necessary for some or our less couth power brokers to begin to realize _certain attitudes_ are just hateful. But there is a point of _way too much_. Something that PCU spends a great deal of time making fun of.

As I'm talking about this, there is a particulare point of the movie that's in my mind. Namely... the end... where Jeremy Piven stands at the front of the stage and gives the following speech...

You know, it used to be the administration's job to make rules. It used to be us against them. Now it's us against us. I've been here seven years and I gotta tell you guys...
what's going on here is about America. It's about democracy. It's about the Bill of Rights, basic cable, call-waiting, free trips to the salad bar. It's about everything that
makes this country great. Our country! We can do something about this. We can finally say... that when some people are having a good time... and drinking some beers, throwing some meat... that we're not gonna protest.

Its not that he's saying protest isn't necessary. Its just that he's saying... come on guys, let's not go overboard.

*smiles* Now, before someone gets onto me about putting too much stock into a movie that was meant to be humorous, I'll start getting to my point.

As the years have passed, I've noticed a number of people slowly getting a little more agitated around the Holidays. You bring up Thanksgiving, and someone brings up the fact that the holiday was founded on the wholesale slaughting of a whole continnent's indigenous culture; a fact that I'm not disputing. You say 'Merry Christmas' to the wrong person, and you've either aggrivated a pagan, a Jewish man, or an aetheist... possibly even a pagan (some of us are a bit touchy about that whole Yule thing). You bring up St. Patrick's Day, and you either get someone who's aggrivated by the fact that its a celebration of the destruction of pagan Ireland _or_ someone who's adamant about it being a Catholic Holiday.

If I keep researching, I'm sure I could find a list of complaints about Halloween and Easter as well... and eventually, we start sounding like the Michael Moore spoof due to hit theaters in the next couple of weeks (last_bastion and are I are going if anyone near Denver wants to join us...).

Which round me nicely into my point.

We are a _huge_ multicultural country. Even excluding the people who move here from other countries, you will find so many cultures in each large city of American that its staggering. You think we'd get used to each other, and a little accepting of one another. And a little accepting of the holiday glue that is part of our greater American culture.

Not everyone I know celebrates Thanksgiving, and I understand why. My ancestors (who also belong to many of my friends here), the white men from Europe, did some very horrible things to those who called this land home before us. But to so many of us out there, Thanksgiving isn't about holding up a flag and going, "Yay! We killed those red men!" Its about family (in whatever form), the sharing of food and company, and remembering that we have it better than we think we do. Sure... there are some people out there who will say, "You should be doing that every day!" And yeah... they're right. But there's nothing wrong with taking a day off that's focused on it. And there's nothing wrong with looking at someone in the grocery store, at the gas station, or in the mall and saying, "Happy Thanksgiving!"

Likewise, there is nothing wrong with the phrase, "Merry Christmas". Nothing. Just like there's nothing wrong with the phrases, "Happy Holidays", "Happy Hanukkah", "Merry Yule", etc. Why get your nose all bent out of whack? If someone says "Merry Christmas" to you, they're just sharing some of their joy. So respond with your favorite in return. Sure... if they've been raised in a void, you might have to explain what Yule or Hanukkah, but is it _really_ that big a deal?

Honestly, I feel sometimes like our culture is heading toward homogenization. While it could be argued that we're there already, we're not... but we're verging on it dangerously. The ironic thing is that its the very _protecting_ of culture that's leading to it.

When we start stripping the spirit out of holidays to preserve the sensibilities of others, we start making those holidays the other thing we condemn them for being.

Commercial.

Which brings me back into St. Patrick's Day.

Why did we start celebrating it as a country? Who knows the answer to this? Its a day where we wear green and drink beer and make Wal-Mart or Target lots of money in conjunction with bars. It started as a Catholic holiday, sure enough... but somewhere along the way, a long time ago, _everyone_ in the States started celebrating it. I like to think that maybe, _just_ maybe, it wasn't about being Catholic when America wholesale started picking up green and wearing it, but because we were celebrating a little of our brotherhood with the Irish. After all, to quote Boondock Saints, "Everyone's Irish today."

Sure... we can go on a tear about wearing green... and I approve! Tell people why they're wearing green! But is it really worth all that energy to protest the celebration of something that started as a religious holiday and here, in America, has become a _cultural_ holiday? I'm a born again pagan, and while the history of the holiday may come out of an attempt at cultural genocide, I still revel in the holiday. Its fun!

If we're going to do that, then we'd have to start going back through the other holidays we celebrate and slowly stripping them away... until we had none of them left.

In essence, what I'm saying is this...

We're different! Yet we are so much the same. Yes... read, absorb, learn... Take the bad with the good. Learn the history of a holdiday and why its here... why we, as Americans, celebrate it. Look for the dark underbelly of that holiday... quite a few of them have them. But remember... this is part of our glue. Celebrate the holiday in question, or don't, I only ask that you remember... happiness is happiness, and happiness shared weaves a community closer and closer. Sharing a Thanksgiving meal with friends doesn't mean that you ignore the history of what the white man did in America, saying "Merry Christmas" doesn't necessarily make the speaker insensitive to the cultures of others, and so on down the line. And if you choose not to celebrate... a perfectably viable choice that no one should be poo pooing you over... just remember that those celebrating aren't going out of their way to insult anything.

We can smile and return joy for joy, or we can get grumpy and move ourselves slowly toward this antiseptic thing full of hollow celebration or self righteous protest.

As Droz said in the movie... wouldn't it be nice... just once... if we didn't protest?

If you've read this far, I commend you for taking the time to do so. *smiles* Hopefully, I haven't aggrivated you overly with my thoughts. Like I said, its been a couple of years brewing, looking for a way to truly express what was in my head...

Anyway... I'm spent now. *smiles*

Love to you all... and here's to a Holiday season full of fun.

(I so can't wait for Halloween!)

Raen.