Why I'm Offering Everyone A Happy Yuletide Greeting!

Happy Yuletide, everybody! 

I'm writing this post because I detest Smashwords' term for annual holiday sale, "The End Of Year Sale." Really, they call it that, here's their generic sale ad:

My problem with "The End of Year Sale" is that it is an absolutely bloodless, corporate phrase. I understand why its use appeals to Draft to Digital, the organization that owns Smashwords: it doesn't exclude anybody, or make anyone feel excluded. If you call it just a "Christmas Sale" you exclude people who celebrate Channukah, Kwanzaa and whatever else is out there. And you shouldn't make people feel excluded at Christmastime, that's contrary to the very spirit of Christmas.

At the same time, I've been an atheist for all of my adult life, and believe me, my adult life has been very adult, except for my inability to take anything seriously. And I've never felt excluded at Christmastime. Love the festiveness, the gift-giving and getting, and the generally fun aspects of it. I take it as the pagan festival it originated as. It was an old Norse celebration that the Christians jumped, kidnaped, tortured and brainwashed until it became the Christian holiday they wanted it to be. They even stamped the name "Christ" all over it to hide its pagan nature. "Celebrating the birth of our Lord Jesus Christ." Snort. Riiiight. We all know what you did, Christians.

That's why organizations and people who don't want to exclude others should go with "Yule" and "Yuletide" to describe our generic winter celebration. Now I know the Christians have gotten their greasy little fingers all over "Yule" and "Yuletide" because that's who and what they are. But I don't think they've quite managed to smother the fucking life out of the Yule yet. I think its pagan heart is stil beating under all that Christmas-flavored pap. Yuletide means wreaths and holiday cards and blazing fires of the fun kind, and general winter-flavored fun. It's not Christmas. It's not Christian. It's its own thing, thank goodness.

And most of all, "Yuletide" is not soul-less corporate ghoulspeak like "End of Year Sale" clearly is, with all of the wonderful festive social joy between people extracted, leaving only the bare bones of capitalism and consumerism in place.

That's why I'm calling the Smashwords End-of-Year sale a Yuletide Sale. So much more festive!  

I would encourage anybody who wants to extend festive winter holiday greetings to everyone: Christians, Muslims, Hindus, Jews, Kwanzaans, whatever, to just say "Happy Yuletide!" Let eveyone in, including the pagans who really started the whole Yuletide thing!

Of course, some will try to continue making the Yuletide a corporate money making operation, and I will be keeping a record of those people and organizations who do that. I will call it my Yule log.