Halloween has passed and we are moving on to Thanksgiving. It is becoming a holiday filled with controversy. Pilgrims are being shown to be the beginning of the downfall of the indigenous population of the north American continent. Bringing disease and deceit with them, they were terrible people. What's even worse, they were religious folks trying to impose their beliefs upon those natives! It's all a terrible thing really, the true story of Thanksgiving. And not only that, the killing of those Turkeys that just want to live free and raise their little turkey families, it is just tragic. Rumor has it that Trump will not issue pardons for any of them. There only hope being someone steals the autopen!
The news is reporting there may be flight delays during the holiday season due to the government shutdown. Air traffic controllers are required to work regardless, but air travel is being impacted. The public is going to be pretty upset if there are delays. We want what we want, and we want it right now! We have a constitutional right to air travel being on schedule! I'm sure it is in there somewhere. Those that can afford to fly their entire families around the country to share in the holiday festivities shouldn't be subjected to the indignity of flight delays. That might ruin the holiday altogether! We can't have any delays in gratification, we deserve better than that.
We turned back the clock over the weekend, we gained an hour of time. I'm 72 now so I have gained 72 hours, three days of time so far. I'm hoping to save up more to take a vacation of my own. I certainly wouldn't want to experience any delays when that happens. I'm just going to ignore the fact that the government takes back that hour every year though, I'm just going to identify with saving an hour. Daylight savings time was just a temporary measure started in WW1 to save energy. Now that was forethought, given the advent of solar power generation today. When we use all that daylight we have saved up we should get free electricity. That's planning ahead. What with all this global warming the air conditioning is going to be needed.
Here we are, on the precipice of the most important holiday of the year. That holiday is Christmas. The original purpose, the intent of that holiday was the recognition of the birth of Jesus. We all know the significance of that Christian holiday. It isn't without question or controversary. The actual date is wrong. The actual place of the birth of Jesus is unknown. There were no wise men, no shepherds and Mary didn't ride a donkey. No mention or displaying any of that is allowed on government property. That's in the constitution too. It's the first amendment. It guarantees religious freedom in the United States. It's just that if you are a Christian you are not free to display your religious belief on government property that your tax dollars support. It's like building a church and not being allowed to hold services there. Sure, you paid for it, you even voted in the people working there, but you can't display your religious belief there. You can however have pride flags and light up the building in those colors because pride isn't a religion, so there.
Well I'm just an old fashioned person I suppose. I remember the holidays from my childhood. Each one was separate, each had its' own traditions and stories. I'm so old that Lincoln and Washington had their own birthdays. The other presidents didn't get a holiday for theirs. But then we decided we needed to be more inclusive so we changed it to Presidents day. We are celebrating all the presidents birthdays. I'm expecting the democrats to pass some legislation barring trump from that though. Now it just seems that the holidays are just lumped together in a season. Ask someone, when are the holidays. The answer will be Thanksgiving, Christmas and New Years. The other holidays don't really count except as an excuse for a day off. We did pass the Uniform Holiday Act to make all of that more convenient. Three day weekends are important.
I'm just saying for me all the holiday rush to retail has ruined it. There is little awareness concerning the reason for the holiday, in fact the trend today is to discredit that reason. Strangely those insisting on that are not advocating for eliminating any of those holidays. Yes, the Pilgrims were horrible people, Christians are firm in their beliefs and those Presidents were some pretty bad people, but we will still celebrate all of that. We don't want any delays while doing it. The retail season is of the utmost importance. This year projections show that Americans will spend about 242 Billion dollars on gift giving and 311 Billion on flights and hotels. Overall the average American will spend 2000 dollars during the holiday (retail) season.
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