It has begun.

Black Friday has come and gone and all but three of us are still around to suffer through the season of commercialization, over-played jingles and, finally, the winter solstice, or as it is more commonly known, Christmas.

How will we ever survive?

Well, Focus on the Family’s James Dobson has the answer; by forcing major retailers to have it’s employees use the greeting “Merry Christmas” exclusively in their locations and in their advertising for the holiday shopping season. “Happy Holidays” will not suffice. This from the organization that has championed, along with numerous other TV and radio pundits, the idea of the “War on Christmas.”

I can’t tell you how tired I am of this. I’m assuming you are, too. I’m guessing that, regardless of your religious affiliation, you’d like to just go about your business- buying gifts, spending time with famly, eating way too much holiday fare- instead of wading through the stagnant pools of faux-outrage bullshit.

The thing about this whole “War on Christmas” thing that really gets to me is the position of victimhood that the people who push it take. They try to pretend that Christians are being persecuted by the “secular-left.” That the religious group that makes up, oh, 75%+ of our nation’s population is being bullied by “secularists.” Give me a break. While you’re at it, break me off a piece of that Kit Kat bar, because I need the soothing crunch of a chocolatey treat to calm me down. This whole thing pisses me off so much. It’s useless and pointless and is nothing more than a last-ditch attempt to enrage the religious-right base that fills up the coffers of people like James Dobson, Bill O’Reilly, John Gibson, et al. Why people support instigators who enrage them uselessly, I’ll never understand.

It’s because of this that I am, as of now, declaring an actual war on Christmas. That’s right, little old me, Nate, a writer on a blog that no one has ever heard of (tell your friends! Sodblog is AWESOME!), is declaring an actual war on the holiday of Christmas.

I insist that Christmas meet me on the field of battle and try to best me, if it can. My weapon of choice is snowballs and I fire them with deadly accuracy, until my hands get frozen stiff, at which point I reserve the right to call a timeout to warm them back up.

C’mon, Christmas, let’s do this! Once and for all!

Looks ike I'm going to have to bring my "A" game.