Hitchens: "Scrooge"

'Tis the Season To Be Incredulous
The moral and aesthetic nightmare of Christmas.
By Christopher Hitchens

"...The core objection, which I restate every December at about this time, is that for almost a whole month, the United States—a country constitutionally based on a separation between church and state—turns itself into the cultural and commercial equivalent of a one-party state.
As in such dismal banana republics, the dreary, sinister thing is that the official propaganda is inescapable. You go to a train station or an airport, and the image and the music of the Dear Leader are everywhere. You go to a more private place, such as a doctor's office or a store or a restaurant, and the identical tinny, maddening, repetitive ululations are to be heard. So, unless you are fortunate, are the same cheap and mass-produced images and pictures, from snowmen to cribs to reindeer. It becomes more than usually odious to switch on the radio and the television, because certain officially determined "themes" have been programmed into the system. Most objectionable of all, the fanatics force your children to observe the Dear Leader's birthday, and so (this being the especial hallmark of the totalitarian state) you cannot bar your own private door to the hectoring, incessant noise, but must have it literally brought home to you by your offspring. Time that is supposed to be devoted to education is devoted instead to the celebration of mythical events. Originally Christian, this devotional set-aside can now be joined by any other sectarian group with a plausible claim—Hanukkah or Kwanzaa—to a holy day that occurs near enough to the pagan winter solstice..."

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Estoy de acuerdo con Hitchens. Pero creo que no hay que ser el Scrogge de la temporada. Sinceramente, con éste tiempo gris y frío, sin vida silvestre de animales y plantas, lluvia, hielo, nieve, un paisaje desolador, un sol en el horizonte que apenas calienta, qué haríamos sin foquitos, sin villancicos? Creo que para muchos, la Natividad es lo de menos, --inclusive he leído que la estrella de Belén parece ser de junio y no de diciembre-- hay quienes son consumistas a lo menso y otros quienes disfrutan el ambiente. Después de vivir ya varias Navidades con inverno en serio, bajo cero, con días de tan sólo 8 horas de luz, agradezco el espíritu navideño, pues sinceramente sin todos los adornos, luces, velas, colores, canciones, muñecos y un largo etcétera, el invierno sería mucho más largo y cruel.
Salir a la calle y ver girnaldas con luces, árboles decorados con esferas, puestos de bebidas calientes, muñecos de nieve, santa closes, música navideña y regalos y regalos y regalos, gente que corre de tienda en tienda, familias completas caminando, a mi, me calienta el día....