I intend to remain as cantankerous and off-putting as possible throughout the season. It helps keep the Xmas worshippers away.

You see, the worship of Christmas has precious little to do with being a Christian celebration, as the historic record shows clearly. It is a modern celebration among Anglo Americans which has now returned like a scourge to some places in Europe, like Britain, in all it's capitalist excess and glory.

I mean, the "universal Christmas" doesn't exactly reflect Italian tradition, now does it? Now there's some folks who know how to celebrate a winter holiday in spite of Our Lord and Savior (pass the holy wine, please)!

Nay, this "universal Christmas" thing is about getting minorities like me to conform to the majority Anglo American dominant culture's celebration of the turn of the Roman New Year, the Celtic New Year, the Asian New Year, etc etc with all the debauchery attend to said festivities.

One thing I will always treasure about my time in Ireland was the memory of how miserable most the Irish people I encountered at Xmas were, because the pubs were all closed, and they were forced to endure close to 48 hours with their families. Which any sane person knows isn't such a good idea for most of us, especially in the dark and dreary days of winter.

I can party with the best of them, but ever since adolescence, I've been hell bent on escaping my family at the holidays, not looking for cheery "seasonal" music to accompany "the horror" as Brando said in "Apocalypse Now", which is an accurate depiction of my family at Xmas time, how about yours?