This never really occurred to me before, but Christmas has gotten so far removed from being a celebration of the birth of Christ, that the majority of the most cherished and traditional celebrations of Christmas are about how Christmas has stopped being about a celebration of the birth of Christ.

A Christmas Carol: ghost story about a guy who hates Christmas until he’s guilted into celebrating the season by a crippled child and the threat of his own death.
It’s a Wonderful Life: whiny depressive threatens to kill himself until people boost his ego enough to convince him an entire city hinges on his existence.
A Miracle on 34th Street: jaded little girl forced to believe in the magic of Christmas by an escaped lunatic.
A Charlie Brown Christmas: whiny depressive becomes despondent at commercialism of the season, regains hope via unsolicited sermonizing by his emotionally troubled friend.
The Passion of the Christ: Jews suck.

My point being that complaining about the commercialism is as much an institution as nativity scenes and midnight mass. So I’m not going to try to add anything to that.

Except this: these advertisers really need to stop with the Christmas carol parodies already.

I actually like “Carol of the Bells” a good bit — I think the coming of the Messiah should have music that is big and overwrought and even a little creepy, instead of that weak “Away in a Manger” pablum. Or at least, I used to like it. Thanks to Garmin, this year I was already sick of hearing it by the time it was even December 1st.

So an open letter to marketing types: I’m not going to tell you to stop marketing the hell out of Christmas. That’s what you do, and I know it’s important on some level. But the next time you’re coming up with an ad campaign, and you think that it’ll be cool to write a clever parody of “Carol of the Bells” or “Jingle Bells” or “Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas” or theme it to A Christmas Carol or include scenes from It’s a Wonderful Life, know this: that shit is played.

And if you still do it, you’re a worthless hack. And as you look around at the ruin of your talentless existence and feel so depressed by the pointlessness of it all, know that when you see the version of the world that doesn’t have you in it, you’ll see a world where everybody is really happy and better off and enjoying the spirit of the season via beloved carols that haven’t been ruined by overuse.

And in that spirit, it’s time once again to hear this rendition of O Holy Night.

Spending time at my parents’ house means seeing hours and hours of CNN, and this week that means every-fifteen-minute updates on Virginia representative Virgil Goode’s discomfort over his fellow congressman’s religion. In particular, how tougher immigration policies are necessary to keep people like Keith Ellison from being born and raised in America and taking advantage of the United States’ establishment clause.

For me, I’m just happy. First, because it’s Christmas. Second, because Ellison’s taking the high road, and a faint ray of light is finally starting to break through and show Goode for what he is: a uniquely stupid individual, and not a representative of the oppressive Conservative Republican Theocracy that controls everything in this country. And third, because for once the idiocy isn’t happening in my home state.

I don’t know if it’s the spirit of Christmas, or if I’d just gotten an unfairly negative impression last time I was here, or if I’m just getting to be less of a tight-ass, but things actually seem to be a little more tolerable in suburban Atlanta these days.

I had to go to the mall to do some Christmas shopping, and the traffic, soullessness, and commercialism were as bad as I’d expected. But it all ended up being pleasant, because people everywhere were friendly. It was a shock to the system — as much as I like San Francisco, I still say that people there keep to a strict mind-your-own-damn-business policy. The clerks here were busy but friendly, and people waiting in line would strike up conversations with me, a complete stranger.

Even better, I ended up feeling like a dope. The mall I went to is targeted primarily towards black people. I don’t know why that’s controversial to say (it’s not just on Wikipedia, where anything can be the grounds for “controversy”); apparently, it’s racist to acknowledge that retailers have target demographics. Whatever the case, Dekalb County is predominantly black, Rockdale is predominantly white, and this bastion of retail paradise straddles the two. As I was shopping, I was keeping an eye out for how people were handling having to fight for the valuable Borders and Best Buy resources that both black and white communities need.

And it turns out exactly like you’d expect — it’s a big freaking non-issue. After all my years living in the San Francisco Multicultural Biodome, I’ve become just as guilty of being Pompous Left-Coast Liberal as I used to accuse everyone of being when I first moved out there. I guess I was going in to my home county acting like an explorer observing relations between the Afrikaaners and the Zulu, or like the one blonde-haired blue-eyed college boy who reluctantly creeps out onstage at “Showtime at the Apollo.”

Instead, what I saw were a bunch of people shopping. And teenage friends hanging out; the younger they were, the less it seemed to matter what race anybody was. Maybe things will keep getting better as long as us liberal caucasians allow our sphincters to unclench. And that, as my Aryan princess Martha Stewart would say, is a good thing.