Let there be Peace on Earth

but maybe it doesn't begin with me today.

I have avoided the "Happy Holidays", "Merry Christmas" debate as something that people are just getting stupid about. Now that we are past the worst of the conflict this year I want to put in my nickle's worth.

Holiday is a contraction of "holy day"- which is a religious event or feast day;the x in christmas represents the cross; Christmas is a contraction of "Christ's mass" or HOLY DAY. So happy one or merry the other, it's basically the same thing. If non belivers really feel better avoiding the word Christ, I can deal with that. I don't know half the time if I am a believer or still a seeker, myself.

What ever I am, I will not bend over backwards or any other way to avoid offending a Buddist, Muslim or American Indian with MY celebrations. Sam Hain or Halloween, May Day or Corn Planting Feast, they are religious celebrations. Some I believe in or can tolerate and some that leave me so confused....but I will defend your right to celebrate your holy days any way you wish. So please don't tell me I can't enjoy mine.

No one says "Happy Sam Hain" where I am from. If they believe in it they are usually wiccans. Now, last I knew, wiccans didn't want a bunch of other religion's believers to even know where they were celebrating for fear of harrassment. They should be free to have a holiday without stress but that's not the way it is here in the old us of a yet. Witches, warlocks and wizards are not socially accepted. Halloween, however, is accepted by most of the people in the area I live in. We don't hide it, we don't have to worry about non believers retaliating against us, we just have our parties and trick or treat and go home.

Believers in Christ founded this country. There is no state mandated religion. Protestants, Catholics, Baptist, Fundamentalist, and Methodist all believe in some form of Christ and/or God. They all do it differently enough that, to me, anyway, they seem like different religions - as different as Mormons or Buddists or Jews. I don't celebrate Passover either. I do not object to it being on the calendar as a holy day. It's just not my holiday.

So if all the corporate types out there want to go to Happy Holidays will it apply to Easter, Passover, Kwanza and other non christian days, too? Fine - then we will never know which holiday we are celebrating!

For me, it's "Merry Christmas", Happy Easter, Happy Kwanza, Joyful Passover, Happy Birthday, as a way to tell them all apart. I am saddened to think that a Jew would care enough about how my holy days are referred to in public to stop shopping where "Merry Christmas" is wished as a greeting. Should I stop buying bagels because the store where I buy them may greet me with "enjoy Fat Tuesday"?

So just stop being foolish. Let everyone enjoy their holy days, greet them with a wish that they have a merry or happy whateverholydayitis today and worry about changing something important, like federal overspending or homelessness.

The whole point of this country is supposed to be tolerence of others different than we are. Many of our immigrants are from highly intolerant cultures and this seems to be difficult for them to understand. They come here and expect us to give up our rights to believe and worship publically as we please while allowing them to retain their right to live their beliefs.

You don't condone others beliefs by allowing them to practice them - you show them that, in America, we all have the right to live our life the way we feel is right.

So if you agree not to bug me about the nativity down the street I won't bug you about the way you dress or the funny star on your walls. If you can't share the love at least spread some tolerence next year.

By the way, The 12th day of the first month is a holiday, now celebrated from sunset on the first following Friday through sunrise the first following Sunday to accomodate proper practice of all the rituals involved. We call it, "Another Year You Are Not Dead Day".

To become an offical member you must stop doing anything useful to survival at sunset on Friday. By 9:00 p.m. you must seek out an establishment with recordable Kareoke or a helpful band, piano player or accordianist and take your own recorder or video recorder.

Before 10:00 p.m. you must have at least 3 drinks of your favorite alchoholic beverage and one order of mixed hordeorves that includes potato skins. Eat all of them but ONE potato skin! This step is very important as the potato skins serve to remind us that we could be laying flat on our back with our guts ripped out filled with cold bacon bits, bitter cheese and sour cream instead of being alive and kicking.

You have until 11:00 p.m. to drink at least one more beverage for the courage to stand up and sing in front of people. While recording your performance for posterity - and to prove you have participated in the rituals - you must hold the last potato skin in one hand and a glass of your beverage in the other while you belt out your favorite tune.

After recording your ditty you are free to eat, drink and be merry till you are ready to go home and crash. Upon arising Saturday morning you must consume one 8 oz. glass of orange juice with a scoop of ice cream in it, one large breadfast roll of your choice (Mine is a carmel pecan sticky bun or a carmel/maple iced cinnamon roll) and one hair of the dog. We have two dogs so I have plenty of dog hairs. Let me know if you need one for this part of the rituals.

The purpose of this part of the ritual is to establish the fact that you are indeed alive and celebrating that life by having forbidden foods for breakfast and that all humans are just fancy mammals, taller than dogs but not nessesarily smarter that any other mammal on the planet.

We are not locked into these particular foods. You may have cake and ice cream, hot cocoa, strawberry milk, pancakes with ice cream and chocolate syrup, ice cream rolled in fruity cereal, ice cream popsicles, peeps on ice cream, dark chocolate candy blended in ice cream or anything else your mom wouldn't let you eat for breakfast. The only MUST is you MUST include ice cream as one ingredient. I like a big cup of strong coffee with a small scoop of vanilla ice cream and a shot of chocolate syrup. I call it a 'Mocha Melt'.

After you finish breakfast you pile the dishes around the sink and go get ready for the day. Leave your jammies in a pile on the floor. If you shower toss your towel over the edge of the tub. This is a holy day, you do not do dishes, clean house or do laundry. You are celebrating being alive another year!

Once you are dressed think of the friend you have seen the least this year and go visit them, taking a small gift of candy or cookies, nothing healthy (like a fruit basket) is allowed. Visit an hour or two then go to the next neglected friends place and take them to lunch at the DQ. After lunch think of a third friend and take them to dinner at a pizza place. After dinner you must return to the place you sang by 9:00 p.m. and have at least one drink with all the new friends you made last night but may have forgotten about. Sing if you wish but it is not required.

The rest of the evening is up to the fates. Stay and sing and play or go home and watch funny movies. No drama, no blood and guts. You are celebrating being alive another year! It's joyful occasion and you know life is a funny thing - it's there one minute and gone the next. Humor is the only appropriate way to celebrate something as funny as life.

When you get up on Sunday, while the holy days are now over, you may take up to four hours to have coffee/whatever, eat breakfast and watch the sun cross the sky. After that you have to clean up the mess you left the day before.

The reason we leave the messes from our ritual breakfast and getting ready to go out and visiting is so that the next day we can be reminded of how much we enjoyed life and being alive for the holiday. It also works to remind you that you should only have just so much fun or you will have a week of no fun cleaning up the mess. While life is to be appreciated and celebrated you still have to take care of the chores it entails.

You only have to do this once a year on the first weekend after the 12th of January to stay an accredited member. All recordings and videos should uploaded and the link emailed with the subject Greater Organization of Drunken Singers Alive (GODSalive) at forherself@hotmail.com. Include your chosen believer's name and email address. You will recieve your membership certificate (suitable for framing) and member card by email.

So Merry Another Year You Are Not Dead Day! Stay alive! Sing! Enjoy Life! (then clean up the mess...LOL)

And let's see who is offended by THIS holy day!