DarthBaboon: This isn't directed towards you, I just want to vent.
We had a long, long, long drawn out discussion on Christmas on the IW board starting
here.
IMHO... yeah, we can have a discussion about the history of the holiday, and we can delve into how it's a pagan holiday that the Church decided to take in and alter for various reasons, and we can go into the entire "it's too commercial" thing and debate that and all...
But really, does any of it really matter? I mean, really, it's a holiday. There's no holiday contract that I'm aware of that says that if want to celebrate it, you have to celebrate it in a certain manner.
Be in some general goodwill towards man, cool. Be it some religious significance, cool. If you want to go and do the pagan thing, cool. Or if you just want to go shopping and blow some money, I'm down with that too.
Just don't get on a high horse and tell other people that they're doing it wrong. Nothing's worse than a condescending wanna-be intellectual.