Tea and Vitriol

  Tonight is Christmas Eve. It is the official end of the Christmas Shopping Season, which began after the Fourth of July. During that period, advertisers, merchandisers and public relations people have been Hell bent on convincing consumers to spend themselves into debt, buying presents for others to prove their love. To buy their love, as it were. Traditional Christmas Carols have been perverted to reflect this commercialism. "Angels we have heard on high, telling us 'Go out and buy!'" And "God rest ye, merry merchants, may you make the yuletide pay!" This has been going on for decades, and not just in the United States. Mind you, there's nothing wrong with buying gifts for a few selected friends and family members. That, at least, is in the tradition of Saint Nicholas or Santa Claus and the Three Wise Guys...or Men...or the Magi. But the expectation that casual acquaintances and relative strangers must be bought for comes under the category of "J

The Christmas season is upon us again. And Hanukkah. Both are religious holidays. Christmas celebrates the birth of Jesus Christ, whom all Christian faiths regard as mankind's savior. Hanukkah celebrates the purification and rededication of Solomon's temple after it was defiled by the Hellenizing actions of the Seleucid Empire. As such, the proper greeting this time of year would be "Merry Christmas and Happy Hanukkah." Especially in years like this one, where the holidays overlap. Yes, both holidays feature gift-giving and as such a great deal of commercialism. But still, it is a happy time of year for most people, who will still use the greeting "Merry Christmas and Happy Hanukkah" when they meet people. It takes us back to an earlier, less complicated time when people were less apt to take offense at everything, when such greetings produced a warm and fuzzy feeling inside. I am referring to the days before progressive liberalism sought to pervert traditio