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Shortest day - Dec 21. Christmas - Dec 25. But then one year, no one spent much at all. That trillion remained in pockets large and small! And Coreece heard a sound rising over the snow. It started in low, then it started to grow. But this sound wasn't sad! Why, this sound sounded glad! Every poster out in Netville, the tall and the small, Was singing without any presents at all! Those people hadn't stopped Christmas from coming! It came! Without that cool trillion, it came just the same! And Coreece, with fingers alight on PC, Sat puzzling and puzzling. "How could it be? It came without ribbons! It came without tags! It came without packages, boxes, or bags!" He puzzled and puzzled till his puzzler was sore. Then Coreece thought of something he hadn't before. Maybe Christmas, he thought, doesn't come from a store. Maybe Christmas, perhaps, means a little bit more!

True, one does not equal the other. However, I used to identify as an atheistic Pagan. Atheist = no personified deities/no belief in imaginary friends. Pagan = recognizing how the wheel of the year correlates to the cycle of life, and appreciating (celebrating) those stages throughout the year. Also how we're all dependent on the planet, and all in this together. At some point in my growth "atheist" described me more accurately than "Pagan," so that's how I've self-identified for quite some time. Interestingly, I'm more accepted in my military clan as an atheist than I ever was as a declared Pagan, though I still do enjoy many of the traditions because of what they stand for.

Desire in one hand and poop in the other and see what one fills up first. I am for what actually works. Free market capitalism and a growing carbon footprint has brought more people out of poverty than a thousand Band Aid concerts. I think negativity and virtue signaling is disgusting.

Not freezing. Snuggled up with my two kids and wife in front of a (real) fire, watching A Christmas Carol (with George C. Scott). To me, there is something incongruous about Christmas and palm trees. Have fun, happy sails, and merry Christmas.

I'm not unhappy about my position; I'm happy, comfortable, well-enough off to be retired. I just don't think that the very definition of happiness ends at mine. Wendy P.

In this century it seems the conservatives are the happy ones and it is the liberals who are miserable. Liberals/progressives are whining and crying about income inequality, climate change, plastic, racism, misogamy, homophobia, islamophobia, transphobia, white privilege, Christianity, guns and toxic masculinity (to name a few), while conservatives sit back and enjoy the best decade in human history, (not to mention record low unemployment a record high stock market and energy independence for as long as the eye can see.) Just who is happy and who is the wretched lot?

I'm still basically apoplectic with rage that a reserve I bought recently came without slinks. I've always held that slinks are good for the lifespan of a lineset, I don't really see why changing owners would affect that.

Might be the reason believers are feeling a bit put upon is because, finally, they can be put upon publicly and without serious repercussions. Non-believers still can't get elected and must hold hands and pretend on occasion, just to be sports, but we can speak out now without fear of being tied to a chair and burned. Sorry Brother, it ain't us, it's you. Atheist's don't give a damn what benign things believers do to make your day's brighter we just do not want to pay for it, have our, and our friends, basic human rights degraded by it, have it forced down the throats of succeeding generations or have it crammed in our faces from every direction. What is very odd is that I have a couple of friends whom I value intensely and trust beyond measure who are firm believers. They don't ever question my non-belief; not even a coy God Bless you. I give the same respect in return. I'm thinking it's the internet effect: were we all in person it would be never a discouraging word, or at least words without vitriol. But we're not and, to the point, we all knew it in advance of logging on and typing our posts. Just how it is, I reckon. Please have a great Holiday sharing with your friends and family or however it is you prefer the enjoy the moment.

If he even existed. Which there is absolutely no proof of. There are no contemporaneous accounts of him, and no archeological proofs exist either. The gospels are clearly about someone that was believed to have existed. But they certainly leave room for both believers and doubters. In any case there is no clear birth or death date for him. Making it very easy and convenient to take over both the winter solstice and the spring celebrations as the church slowly imposed its will on the population of Europe. Christianity and most religion is about power and glory. Not of God, but of priests and kings.

I was also sort of noticing a tone of malice here. Coreece often has angry reactions to Christianity not being given the place of high honour he feels it is entitled to in western and particularly American life.