Month: December 2017

Happy Holidays!

I hope everyone has a very merry Zagmuk, Sacaea, Saturnalia, Yuletide, Sankranti, Brumalia, Dies Natalis Solis Invicti, Hanukkah, Alban Arthuan, Midwinter, Finn’s Day, Festival of Sol, Festival of the New Sun, Festival of Growth, Great Day of the Cauldron, Dong Zhi, Nollaig, Juul, Jul, Jiueis, Jol, Joulu, Joulupukki, Children’s Day, Festival of Kronos, Kallikantzaroi, Karkantzaroi, Dazh Boh, Chaomos, Inti Raymi, Soyal, Sada, Touji, Geol, Feailly Geul, Modra-niht, Giuli, Iol, J–lm^nu_r, Shass Greiney Geuree, Yn Ad-Gheurey, Divalia, Larentalia, Sigillaria, Midvinterblot, Touji, if Inti Raymi, Shabe-Yalda, Sviatki, Koleda, Choimus, Soyalangwul, Diwali, Sadeh, Adur-Jashan, Maidyarem, Shab e Cheleh, Novo Hel, Nollaig, Pongal, Modranetc, Yalda Night, Karachun, St. Thomas’ Day, Christmas (Xmas), The Festival of the Long Night, Wintervil, Zamenhof Day, Festivus, HumanLight, Chrismukkah, Giftmas, Newtonmas, Kwanzaa, Boxing Day, Lenaea (Festival of the Wild Women).

And a very happy birthday to Adonia, Appolo, Attis, Baal, Dionysus, Helios, Hercules, Mithra, Osiris, Perseus, Theseus, Jesus, and King Arthur.

Story of the Upside-Down Xmas Tree

In 1979, I was lying in bed and wondered why people didn’t decorate their ceilings. I began to decorate mine with billowing Indian print bedspreads or tapestries and other things.

In the 1980s, I first had the idea to hang an upside-down Xmas tree from the ceiling, but I didn’t act on it.

In 1998, a co-worker offered me her old artificial tree, and I implemented the idea. I put it up with strings, wire, and push-pins. I strung lights, decorated it, and put presents all around.

In 1999, I put a toy train around it and decorated the whole ceiling as if it were Xmas morning, and some of the gifts had been opened. I had a chess game in progress, a spilled drink,a Twister game, and various other gifts laying around.


I moved to a new place in 2001 and set it up again on the ceiling of my porch less elaborately.

I thought it was a unique idea, but a friend sent me a picture of an upside-down tree in a bar, and I discovered that you could buy variations of the idea online.

Many years later, my aunt took a picture of an upside-down tree for sale….

But I’ve never run across anyone who went to the extent of decorating the whole ceiling as I did.

An Argument for ‘Xmas’ as a Secular Holiday

I’ve always thought these other holidays like HumanLight and Festivus were kind of lame attempts to compete with Christmas. After all, Christmas has a lot of cultural evolution behind it that has caused it to succeed very well.

Everyone should know that Christians have appropriated many older customs to form this holiday to try and make it their own. I don’t see why we can’t appropriate it for ourselves just as they did. It is already well on the way to becoming a “secular” holiday anyway, so maybe we can just push it the rest of the way.

There are many Christians who don’t understand the history of why it is sometimes abbreviated as “Xmas,” and they object to that abbreviation because they think it is “Xing out Christ from Christmas.”

Rather than trying to continually enlighten them about this issue, why not embrace their misunderstanding? We can say, “Yes! that’s exactly what we are trying to do!!! We are going to celebrate Xmas just like you celebrate Christmas, but without the Jesus BS.” We can still have the tree, the lights, and the gifts etc., but without a Jesus in the manger.

If Christians can steal it from pagan traditions, then we can steal it from them.

It could also be considered somewhat edgy, just like the X-Games relate to the Olympics. We could add our own extra flourishes to replace those that we are excluding (possibly crowning the tree with a Flying Spaghetti Monster rather than a star, for example).

I think it may be easier to appropriate it than to compete against it.