Wendy Brandes Jewelry Blog

Never Is the Next New Thing

Regifting, Bloggy Style: The Meaning of Xmas

by

Here’s a rerun of my 2008 Christmas post. Before you read it …

VOTE FOR ME AT GRANT MILLER MEDIA!

If you don’t vote for me for me in all three of my categories — Blogger of the Year, Blog With the Most Overt Product or Service Endorsements, and Blog With the Most Swears — Santa will put coal in your stockings. Seriously, he will pull up your skirt, yank down your American Apparel tights and put coal in there. That will be really uncomfortable and messy. So vote. And tell your friends, family, colleagues, enemies and frenemies to vote too.

Okay, now you can read my Dec. 24, 2008, post:

Every December 25, I get into the holiday spirit by reminiscing about an idiot I knew in my freshman year of college. This self-described born-again Christian once went into a rant about the secularization of Christmas as symbolized by the use of “Xmas.” She thought that evil secular people had X’d the “Christ” out of Christmas. She didn’t know that the Greek letter “X” — the first letter in the Greek spelling of “Christ” — has been used as shorthand for “Christ” for centuries. No one X’d the Christ out of Christmas; X IS Christ, for Jebus’s sake! (If you want more info about the X factor, here’s an Xian’s explanation for fellow Xians.)

Anyway, here some things I wish I could say to my long-ago acquaintance in honor of the holiday.

  1. It’s bad to be stupid.
  2. It’s worse to be stupid about your own religion’s history while trying to convert an easily irritated atheist of Jewish origin.
  3. If your God disapproved of gays, He wouldn’t have allowed that hairstylist to give you the most unflattering hairdo since Medusa’s. That haircutting queen was actually the hand of God punishing you for your homophobia!
  4. Merry Titmas!

One of the only things more horrible to look upon than my classmate’s 1985 revenge-of-Harvey-Milk hairdo is this Xmas music video by my almost-husband Paul McCartney. I know you will want to stop watching and scrub your eyes with a Brillo pad after Paul serenades himself at 1:54, but I urge you to stick it out to 3:04 to see the giant, exploding present flying through the air.

Remember how Paul’s recent ex-wife, batshit-crazy Heather Mills, was claiming she had tapes that proved Paul abused her and his first wife, Linda? I think she must have been talking about this video.

You might also like
Jewels of the Month: Halloween Treats
Independence Day Goal Achieved
The Week in Review

Reader Interactions

Comments

  1. Hilarious post Wendy. That born again is a fuckwit of the highest order! Anyway merry xmas or something!

  2. that video made no sense!
    gotta love those born again christians… though honestly i can’t say i’ve seen many of them living in SF then NYC. though from what i can remember, i never really believed anything they said. which is probably why i never got into religion.

  3. Dear Wendy, my boyfriend took me out as a “surprise’ last weekend, it turned out to be to see Paul McCartney – more of a present for him I think! I blogged about it… He sang Wonderful Christmas Time and even the die hard fans groaned! I have to say I wasn’t amused when I realised where I was being taken but the Beatles songs were brilliant.

    Have a fabulous Christmas. Love Christina xx

    • I do love Paul M! Just not his use of the word “veggie” and the thumbs-up sign, and this video. He does a good show. Glad you liked the old tunes at least!

  6. Ignorance is everywhere, but especially about stuff like this. Steven and I were talking about this very point (X = Chi = Christ, duh!) the other day. Down here in The South we’re also getting a lot of the Happy Holidays vs Merry Christmas backlash. I hate to break it to people that there are multiple holiday’s going on at this time of year… NOT JUST YOURS.

    Cripes!

  7. What a whack job! Didn’t he know that the ‘X’ in X-mas really referred to an X-rated holiday… a la Bettie Page? BTW, I voted 🙂

  8. Oy, I must have had your idiot’s sister living next door to me when I was in college. I got the same spiel over and over again. Obviously, her G-d was better than my G-d. All I could say was OMG SHUT UP!

    Thanks for the pic. Here’s what Santa gave Bettie one Xmas when she was naughty.
    http://tinyurl.com/25cx9k7

  10. XX (not in the double Christ sense).

    That McCartney song is soooo repetitive, it’s almost the only one I can’t stand at this time of year, well that and the Mariah Carey one.

    Ah, lovely Titmas, thanks for that.

  11. Christmas check-list: Vote for WendyB–check. Read WendyB’s post–check. Laugh real hard at WendyB’s post–check. Whew. I’m done, except to say “Happy Holidays” and thanks for stopping by Portland Oregon Daily Photo. Hope you had a chance to VOTE for ARF at the link there on my blog. Also I hope Henry’s feeling better–I don’t understand why dogs do that, but they do.

  12. This post is just as good the second time around. Best bloggy-style regifting job ever.

    Merry Christmas to you and your loved ones, Wendy!

  15. #3 nearly made me pee my pants, so funny. I remember in middle school singing “I want you to jump from the very top” to the tune of this song 🙂