Merry CHRISTMAS!!!

So, the Secret Santa "reveal" was interesting. One of my co-workers exclaimed, "Let's go around and everyone can guess who they had! Amber, you go first!" Yeah...wasn't real happy about that. I did not guess Mildred. She gave me some Santa dishes - plates and mugs. They are okay... I will probably return them (that is the one thing she did right - gift receipt!) I like the idea of some Christmas dishes, but I would rather have snowman ones or a platter for cookies or something. I am lacking in the "platter" department all together. She asked me in front of everone later "did you know it was me?" I was thinking, "Are you serious? Do you want me to strip you of any dignity you still have?" Most people knew about the situation, so they were snickering...
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Tuesday was the university's annual "White Elephant" gift exchange and chili luncheon. It was quite fun! I gave a hideous purple home-made snowman contraption that I received last year. This year I received:


Ah yes, the Clapper. In the original box even! My co-worker had the fab idea of installing the lights from the 3 foot Christmas tree in my office into it. Shutting my door, loud men's voices, and other random things now turn the Christmas lights on and off. Very rarely does my clapping work. I have to remind myself to disable the thing before I leave work today!
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WARNING: This portion is an editorial post regarding the word "Christmas." Please do not read on if you think you might be offended. Thanks! Amber

So, I have been getting extremely annoyed with people and stores lately. I know that I have been hearing things about all of the stores that have eliminated "Christmas" from their stores, ads, etc. in the past few years. I personally, of course, think that this is ludicrous and I have written some emails to these companies to get Christmas back into their vocabularies.

My annoyance this year is how it has filtered into PEOPLE!!! People walk around exclaiming "happy holidays," "have a happy holiday," "enjoy your holiday season." Can someone please retrieve my eyeballs from the back of my head!?!

Even the people who do not claim to be Christians, they have a "Christmas" tree and have Santa come to their house (which, last time I checked, was a celebration of Christmas...) Hence, people have been so brainwashed with political correctness and the commercialization of this "holiday season" crap, that they might as well equate saying "Merry Christmas" with saying "bugger off!" like it's an insult or something! Excuse my language, but I get really heated about this!

I was kind of told not to say "Merry Christmas" to my students, but I do anyway! I refuse to pretend that Christmas is not the central reason for all of the celebrating that we do at this time and for the reason in which we all have off of work and school! So, even though I work at a Catholic university, I am not surrounded by people who will wish me a "Merry Christmas." I was extremely annoyed with the PRIEST in an email about the upcoming masses, said "Happy Holidays" at the end. Oh, and why do we capitalize these H's? I know why I capitalize the C in Christmas - because a)Christ is a person b)He is our Lord and deserves the respect and reverence c)Christmas is a real and recognized holiday. "Holiday" and "season" hold none of the aforementioned. Oh, and spare me the "well, happy holidays covers both Christmas and New Year's." C'mon people, are you too lazy to with someone both Merry Christmas and a happy new year?!? And also please spare me the "what about Jewish people and people of other religions." I have asked Jewish people if they are offended by someone saying "Merry Christmas" to them and they could care less. They are happy that that person is happy and enjoying their traditions. And, the majority of people DO celebrate Christmas in some form or fashion. And sometimes, majority rules. I just think that we should be able to say Merry Christmas without feeling like we are breaking some unwritten rule.

I am sorry if anyone is offended by my words, but I am offended that the word/concept/celebration of "Christmas" has been tossed aside as basically a swear word and some type of derogatory concept.

No one said that I didn't have strong opinions...
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I wish all of you a blessed Christmas and a joy-filled new year!!!
No internet at home, so posts will probably be sparse!

We will do our own Christmas celebration on Saturday - just the two of us. MomJohnson sent us their gifts (thanks!), so we'll open those too on Saturday. Sunday morning we're off to see the Blaskowski's and Sankeys! We will celebrate with Johnsons and Andersons in January some time. Something we still need to plan!

MERRY CHRISTMAS!!! MERRY CHRISTMAS!!! MERRY CHRISTMAS!!! MERRY CHRISTMAS!!! MERRY CHRISTMAS!!! MERRY CHRISTMAS!!!