Christmas, Hanukkah, Holiday Schmoliday and Dishwasher Detergent

I know there's always a whole lot of ruckus this time of year with the conservative folk bemoaning the demise of Christmas.  I read somewhere once that this was completely fabricated by the likes of Rush Limbaugh (ouch, it hurts to even type the name!), but nevertheless, each year the theory is trundled out and amidst all the commercial frippery we are called upon to witness the "heathenization of our youngsters."

If you'll forgive the curse, I think it's a crock of sh$#%.

Yesterday, both my sons performed in two different holiday music concerts. Oliver, in elementary school, where minds are still supple and impressionable, played the triangle. There were skits about having gay parents; there were skits about compassion and dignity and respect. This is a school that is unapologetically progressive. All the music was original -- not a single carol or jingle bell rock or dreidel was invoked, and guess what?

Oliver claimed that the triangle is goofy, but he wore a zip tie...

It was fantastic and Christmas is still coming to our house!

Over on the other side of town, Henry, in middle school, dressed with his classmates in black dress pants and shirts and sang a series of holiday songs.

I know I'm biased, but my son is seriously handsome.

Some were traditional religious carols and others traditional Christmas pop. Individual students sang solos, played violins and clarinets and cellos. People stood and cheered and clapped. Because this is Los Angeles and so many people in our neighborhood work in "the business," there were a whole lot of big cameras. It was fantastic.

That whole thing about "taking back Christmas" is just boring, if you ask me. It's right up there with the "take back America" thing and the "I'm not letting no government come between me and my doctor" thing. Just the other day I listened to a long story about how Americans are complaining that their dishes are not getting clean anymore, and the reason why is that detergent companies have taken phosphates out of dishwasher detergent. Hallelujah, is what I say. If you've been living under a rock somewhere, you might not be aware that phosphates pollute the water, cause algae bloom and are generally bad, bad, bad, even if they do remove those stubborn water stains and fingerprints from your glassware. I heard a woman on the radio complaining about it and she said in a very thick Southern accent that I'm going down to the hardware store and buy me some phosphate to add to my detergent because I'm not sure I trust these people who are saying it causes the algae bloom.

Ahhhh, we Americans and our priorities.

Merry Christmas and you can take algae bloom and dying waterways and shove it.

If you think it's offensive to juxtapose a little good old-fashioned liberal political talk in with your kids' holiday schmoliday music concerts, don't read any further because I was just going to tell you about the dad at the school that is now a mom...