Festivus For The Rest Of Us

As an Atheist, new friends occasionally ask me whether I celebrate Christmas. The answer is a resounding yes. I love Christmas!

Before you Evangelicals get all uppity and offended, Christmas celebrations are not limited to only Christians. Christmas is hugely popular in Hong Kong, Macao, Japan and Korea. Even though there are almost no Christians, their populations have readily adopted the secular aspects of Christmas; such as gift-giving, decorations and Christmas trees. It's quite a sight to see.

And no, I never heard anyone over there singing "Deck the Halls".

December 25th was likely selected as "Christmas Day" by the Roman Church in the early 4th century when they finalized the church calendar. It's abundantly clear from scripture that Jesus was not born in the Winter. So why did they choose December 25th? Well, when the church calendar was created most church holidays were placed on solar dates. In fact, John the Baptist's birthday is celebrated on the summer solstice. The respective equinoxes are celebrated as Jesus and John's dates of conception. They called this "cosmic symbolism".

I was lead to believe that Christmas was a corruption of Pagan solstice celebrations. According to historian S.E. Hijmans this may not have been the case. He believes that while the Church understood that pagans called this day the 'birthday' of Sol Invictus, this did not concern them and it did not play any role in their choice of date for Christmas.

Interesting... For those of you keeping score at home, I may have been wrong.

Dies Natalis Solis Invicti means "the birthday of the unconquered sun". This was a holiday started by the Roman emperor Aurelius around 274. Aurelius reformed and elevated an existing sun cult of the time and made it the preferred Roman religion. After Aurelius, Sol became the supreme deity of Rome until Christianity took hold. The Romans celebrated December 25th as the day the sun stopped its southern retreat and returned "unconquered".

Obviously one problem with this is that the actual solstice is and always has been on the 21st of December.

So where did our Christmas traditions come from anyway? Well, the idea of merrymaking and gift giving likely came from the Roman holiday of Saturnalia. Greenery, lights and charity from the Roman New Year celebration. The yule log is a tradition from pre-Christian German and Scandinavian feasts. Since Northern Europe was the last to convert to Christianity, many if not most Christmas traditions come from them. Like Christmas trees.

Did you know that people used to decorate Christmas trees with real candles? How crazy is that?

Enough about Christmas and its history. I want to talk about Festivus. Festivus is celebrated on December 23rd and was created when Frank Costanza refused to conform to the commercialism and consumerism of the holiday season. This aired on the Seinfeld episode "The Strike".

I lifted the next part directly from the Festivus website. Since I'm technically citing it, it's not plagiarism.

The Festivus Pole: The Costanzas' tradition begins with an aluminum pole, which Frank praises for its "very high strength-to-weight ratio." During Festivus, the unadorned Festivus Pole is displayed. The pole was chosen apparently in opposition to the commercialization of highly decorated Christmas trees, because it is "very low-maintenance," and also because the holiday's patron, Frank Costanza, "find[s] tinsel distracting."

The Airing of Grievances: At the beginning of the Festivus dinner, each participant tells friends and family of all the instances where they disappointed him or her that year. As quoted from Frank Costanza: "I've got a lot of problems with you people, and now you're going to hear about it!"

Festivus dinner: In "The Strike," a celebratory dinner is shown on the evening of Festivus prior to the Feats of Strength. The on-air meal appeared to be meat loaf or spaghetti in a red sauce. In "Festivus: The Holiday for the Rest of Us" by Allen Salkin, drinking is encouraged with hearty beer, rum, bourbon, or wine. In the episode, no alcohol was served, but George Costanza's boss, Mr. Kruger, drank from a flask.

The Feats of Strength: After the dinner, the head of the family tests his or her strength against one participant of the head's choosing. Festivus is not considered over until the head of the family has been pinned to the ground. A participant is allowed to decline to attempt to pin the head of the family only if they have something better to do instead.

And this brings us to my "Airing of The Grievances". I've got a lot of problems with you people, and now you're going to hear about it!

Everything about "The War on Christmas" totally pisses me off. There is no war on Christmas. Look, Christians are the majority. You can't be persecuted when you are the majority! Get over yourselves. When someone cuts you feet off for celebrating Christmas, then you can come running to me. Not having a frickin' manger in the town square isn't persecution.

For those of you who have been spamming me about the "Twelve Days of Christmas" being a secret Christian code, it's not. Just more Evangelical bullshit to make Christians feel persecuted in the most Christian country on earth. Look it up before you hit resend.

In Greek, the first letter of "Christ" is X (chi).  Hence the abbreviation Xmas. It's been this way since the mid-16th century. Unless the War on Christmas predates the Thirteen Colonies, it's not part of the "Atheist Plot to Take Christ Out of Christmas".

There is a plot, that just isn't part of it. Our real plot is way more sinister.

Traditionally the airing of the grievances should be done in person after the Festivus meal. Since we weren't able to meet in person, I'll just lay everything out right now.

@ Captain Kirk - Pick up the damn phone once in a while!

@ John - Really, would it kill you to blog more than once a quarter?

@ Sister Laurie - Get over yourself Polly Purebred and have some fun. It's a date. You don't need to pick out wedding china on your first night out.

@ Gary - See above. And no, you can't have my sister's number.

@ Stace - I just don't have enough time to cover all your problems. Suffice to say, there are a lot. A lot.

@ Al - You suck at golf as bad as you suck at darts.

@ Uncle Dave - You haven't pissed me off this year. Why don't you love me anymore?

@ Doli - Quit being so sensitive! It's only fantasy football. We still love you.

@ Mom - It wouldn't kill you to pick up the phone too. Maybe you and Kirk can form a support group?

@ Pat - You haven't pissed me off, but I wanted to include you so you wouldn't whine about being left out. Your Facebook status updates are lame. How about that?

@ Sherry - Kids lie. Even the good ones.

@ The Professor - How about publishing something in the near future? For a guy whose business is writing, you don't seem to do very much of it.

@ The Drewry's - Quit being so damn perfect. I hate that about you.

To everyone else, you all piss me off and I wouldn't want it any other way. If any of you feel the need to challenge me to "The Feats of Strength", form a line. I'll beat all of you down.

Happy belated Festivus, Merry Christmas and a joyous New Year to you and your families!!!

Happiness and Moving On

So is there anyone here who hasn't heard Cee Lo Green's single "Fuck You"? If not, check out this video. This song is f'n addictive. I find myself singing it in the car, in the shower and at work. It's a little slice of vulgar heaven. The production is straight out of Motown in the late 60's. I can hear Diana Ross singing this tune in my head.

There's a clean version of the song called "Forget You". Gwyneth Paltrow even covered it on Glee a few weeks ago.

Gwyneth Paltrow. I am in love...

My kids love that version. My son loves the line "I guess he's an Xbox, and I'm more Atari." Even my daughter knows most of the words. On one hand, I feel a little guilty knowing the source material, but on the other if they're going to listen to music, this is a great tune to fall in love with.

FYI - Cee Lo became a grandfather this week at the ripe old age of 35.

***

Let's start with a recommendation.  For those of you who don't follow John Hnat's blog, I suggest you start. When he's not talking about running, it's a good read. Unfortunately, he's terrible at posting regular updates and has cancelled it at least twice.

In the world of bloggers, he's a prima-donna. If he's looking for positive reinforcement, he's picked the wrong hobby.

The reason I bring this up, is that I made his blog this week. This is probably as close as I'll ever get to making headlines in the "mainstream media". John's assessment is dead on, but the title of his post is a complete mess - he never does explain the whole "Noodle Salad" thing.

My comment about thanking The Ex came off as a little snarky in my post, but that really wasn't my intent. In a lot of ways my life is already better than before the divorce filing. It's more exciting, more rewarding and I've developed a much stronger bond with my kids. I no longer take anything for granted. I feel like I've woken up from a trance.

The process of growth and self-discovery that I've gone through in the last six months was only possible due to the shit sandwich The Ex served me in June. It woke me up to the unexplored potential in my life. John's post also got me thinking about the topic of "happiness" and why I haven't been posting as often as I should.

Why am I so hard on myself? I've recently begun a program of self-nagging about my lack of blog postings. In fact, I'm only typing this to get myself off my own back.


That seems twisted in some way.

Look, my life is pretty damn boring right now. I'm happy. From a literary perspective, happy is boring. How many best selling memoirs are there about happy people? And I'm not talking about people who are happy thanks to the huge royalty checks they get from their memoirs.

I don't have anything insightful to say. With the exception of days I have to go to court, I'm not feeling any great remorse or pain. I'm pretty much just having a damn good time with my family and friends while I bide my time before I start the next chapter of my life. Heck, it can't come fast enough. Hope and excitement are not the stuff great blog postings are made of.

This is strange to think, but I am really looking forward to starting over. Don't get me wrong, if I make a promise I keep a promise, but the Ex divorcing me is going to go down as the best gift she ever gave me.

Even better than the golf clubs.

Once she's gone I can get to the business of living again. My life before was comfortable and safe, but it pretty much sucked all the joy out of a room. Life now is exciting and new. There are new people to meet, new experiences to savor and new things to learn.

Time to throw open the door and shout "NEXT!" I'm pretty comfortable in saying, operation "Letting Go" is complete. There is not a single part of me that wants my old life back anymore. It took a long time, but even the casual slips have come to an end. I no longer reminisce about days gone by.

I do still occasionally refer to The Ex as "my wife". That has to stop.

Okay, so what does any of that have to do with happiness? Do you have a point?

I am my own worst critic. I hold myself to a pretty high standard. This probably stems from my relationship with my Dad. He had high standards for me, but he had exponentially higher standards for himself. Now that he's gone I think I may have adopted some of those positions.

Having high standards is good, but beyond a certain point they become a hindrance and an inhibitor to personal satisfaction. Think of Reese Bobby instructing his young son Ricky Bobby, "If you ain't first, you're last." The problem with this philosophy is that it is an all or nothing didactic. Life is defined as success or failure, with no partial credit.

Yes, much of my deep, personal philosophical direction comes from Will Ferrell movies.

It's a recipe for unhappiness, because in real life, we rarely finish first. In those cases anything short of perfection can be interpreted as abject failure. In my limited experience, highly driven people have a problem maintaining happiness due to their very high personal standards. I have found myself falling into this trap from time to time.

Probably the worst example of this is my intense competitive streak. Whether it is softball, bowling, darts or golf, I hate to perform at less than 100%. I don't mind the losing. What bothers me is beating myself. We can be up seven runs or down ten, and yet if I swing at a bad pitch I will curse myself all the way back to the bench. It makes any sport less enjoyable than it otherwise should be. It might be why I am drawn to fishing - no competition.

As Reese Bobby says in the end, "Hell boy, I was high when I said that. There are lots of other places to finish. You can be second, or third, or fourth. Hell, even fifth." The key is to maintain high personal standards for success, but not at the expense of being able to enjoy the journey. In all things other than organized sports, I prefer to be first, but I don't have a problem finishing fourth. Hell, even fifth.

That does not apply to fantasy football. If I'm not first, I'm last.

Even though I am mired in the middle of this mess of a divorce, I still consider myself to be a pretty happy guy. Sure, things occasionally get me down, but I don't let my mis-steps or failures define me. I work hard and I play harder. I am responsible and dependable, but I am not afraid to embarrass myself for a laugh. I think I finally understand (after 42 years) that life isn't so much about winning or losing, it's about how you play the game.

***

I'm trying to work up the courage to write a post about dating. It'd be a great read if I could bring myself to accept the embarrassment. 

Happy Holidays!

Back to Purgatory

Man, if John can find time for two posts in a week, who am I to ignore my faithful readers?

Here I sit at nine o'clock on a Wednesday morning awaiting a call from my custody investigator. I am on the sixth floor of the Macomb County courthouse. It's known as the Friend if the Court level, or purgatory to those of us in the know. Soon a complete stranger will interview me with the express intent of deciding the future custody of my minor children. These would be the two most important people in my life. At the end of his investigation the custody investigator will choose from three outcomes. Me, the Ex or 50/50.

The crazy part is that for the custody investigator there is no investment in the outcome. Regardless of the recommendation, he doesn't have to live with the results. There are no long term measurements on his decisions. They don't track child outcomes based on the assignments made. They might as well do away with the interview process and just throw dice. Most of the people that come through his office probably have two decent parents anyway, right? Einstein postulated the "God does not play dice with the universe" but the Friend of the Court seems to.

Based on a short one hour interview this gentleman will be required to make a recommendation that will completely define the lives of my children for the next twelve years. He will determine what values they will grow up with, where they will grow up, where they will go to school and how often they will see the people that truly love them.

As opposed to the Mississippi Mafia who simply try to buy them off with inappropriate gifts.

So here I sit with my kids lives on the line awaiting my "interview". This may be the single most important conversation of my life. I feel like I've been preparing my whole life for this day. All of my schooling, everything I learned from my Dad about responsibility and doing the right thing, all of my friendships and the people in my life who taught me how to compromise and all of my professional experiences that taught me how to negotiate. Everything I've experienced and learned was for this hour.

***

I met my inquisitor. He seems like a genuinely caring guy. I don't know how he survives doing what he does. I think he'll give me a fair shake. At least I hope he will.

The Ex's attorney opened and spent thirty minutes assassinating my character and parenting skills. There are lies, and then there are LIES. If Uncle Dave had been there someone would have gotten punched in the face. I took it all pretty well until that jackass started talking about my kids feelings towards me. I wonder how much quality time he's spent with my kids to pretend to know anything about them or their feelings regarding this divorce?

Okay, enough about that. Nothing productive will come from those sour grapes.

My Ex now gets about an hour to present her case that I am a bad father. Well, when I'm not being an absentee father. Or an abusive husband. Or any of the hundred other evil, untrue things she's spinning. What she doesn't understand is that the more she tries to demonize me, the easier it will be for me to refute. She would be much more successful focusing on her skills as a mother than my supposed faults as a father. The more she talks about my faults, the less she talks about how her custody would benefit the kids.

I want stability for the kids. If I thought for one minute that being with her would offer the kids the stability they need, I would stop fighting today. Unfortunately, that's not going to happen. I want the kids to stay in the house they know. To go to the school they love. To spend time with their friends. To be close to their families.

She wants them to move to Mississippi. The poorest, most poorly educated, most racist state in the nation.

One thing that scares me about the move is the Ex's propensity to destroy relationships. The Ex is no longer in communication with ANYONE from our wedding party. She does not speak to any of her bridesmaids or my best man (who she required me to pick). She is estranged from her brother and wasn't speaking to her oldest brother at the time of his death. Eventually, she'll nuke her relationship with the Mississippi Mafia too - just like every other relationship in her life. And when that happens, what happens to my kids? Another move? More stress? How will that benefit them?

And that is the reason I fight. And it is the reason I will continue to fight until all of my options are exhausted.

***

Just got out of my one on one interview. That could not have gone any better if I had written a script. My interviewer is a divorced father who grew up in Mississippi.

That's not a joke.

When I stated that the Ex wanted to move to Mississippi, he shook his head. He stated that there is no way any judge in Macomb County will ever let my Ex take my kids to Mississippi. His comment was "You have nothing to worry about."

I liked that.

After the interview, I would say I have an excellent chance of being awarded full custody of my kids. Yup - full custody. Apparently the filing of false reports of child abuse and domestic violence do not sit well with the Macomb County Friend of the Court. I guess that makes sense. If you can't tell the truth to the police, it might reflect poorly on your parenting skills.

So there you go. One more day in purgatory down. One more day closer to closure. One more day closer to being rid of her and her drama.

When this is all over, I think I'll send the Ex a thank you card.

Peace.