Merry -- wait, I mean, Happy -- umm...

My local homeschooling group meets on Thursdays, so last week was our last get-together before the big C. I brought various cookies I'd baked -- shortbread, smashed-candy-cane cookies (pretty much the only accurate name for them), those little round molasses guys you shake in powdered sugar (sorry, but there's no way I'm getting up and checking the correct spelling of "pfeffernusse" right now, and anyway I'm pretty sure it requires a couple of dots over the "u" or something and there's no way I'm figuring out how to do that, either) -- as well as some smallish resealable food storage bags my son had decorated in a festive manner. Since I'd had no idea how many people would be there, I simply lugged it all in an opaque cloth shopping bag, and then quietly assembled goodie bags for any family who wanted one.

I didn't think anything about this, until about the fourth person said, "Oh -- so, do you celebrate -- or, I mean, you know, some people do some of it but not all of it; but I guess that's not -- I mean, maybe you don’t -- "

I generally keep the whole "I'm the editor of SHM" thing under wraps in my group. Not because I'm embarrassed, although it's true that my life in that respect might be a lot different if one of our good friends in the group wasn't the wife of an evangelical, young-earth creationist-type minister. Mostly I just don't want people thinking that if they come to our park days, I'm going to try to sell them something. I mean, I am, but I don't want them to think I am.

No, really, I'm sensitive on the point of seeming as if I'm peddling my little paper. I do talk about my work, though, especially since there's another writer/editor in the group. And I often bring work to park days -- either envelopes to fill and address and stamp, or books to read for reviewing. And I tend to talk about it if, for instance, I get a particularly lovely email from a total stranger who likes what I'm doing, or a particularly ghastly email from a total stranger who hates what I'm doing. So people who spend time with me know what I do, and know the name of the magazine I edit and write for.

And so, being intelligent and sensitive sorts, they naturally didn't want to make any assumptions about what I might or might not -- and, hey, totally cool either way! -- be celebrating this time of year.

Which I thought was really sweet. So I broke it to them gently that I'll celebrate pretty much any holiday that doesn't actively conflict with my lack of beliefs and does bring me a heightened chance of receiving presents.

My son has Jewish relatives, so we celebrate the first night of Hanukkah in a secular fashion. I would feel presumptuous lighting candles, but I make one hell of a good latke for a shiksa, and I play a mean game of dreidel. (And I just found out that my word processor is a closet anti-Semite, since it wouldn't accept any spellings of "dreidel" -- and forget about "shiksa" -- without putting a big red line under them.) I even know the best gelt to buy. Forget those tacky five-bags-for-a-nickel you always see at the grocery store. It's once a year, kids. Live it up. Buy Lake Champlain chocolate coins. They're insanely expensive, but this is one time when you get what you pay for.

We also read a little about the history of the holiday, since that is kind of the point. And I want my son to know more about what the heck Hanukkah is than I did growing up, which was what I could glean from the two Hanukkah songs they had us sing, along with eighty or ninety Christmas carols, in my elementary school's winter holiday program. And what I could glean was pretty much that there was a dreidel. And some candles. So even if most of what I read him doesn't stick, if he knows about a military victory and the miracle of the oil lasting way longer than it should have, my son's still way ahead of where I was at his age.

We observe the winter solstice in the sense of saying, "Hey, it's the solstice today." I used to make a bigger deal about it back when I had to walk everywhere -- this was before I had a car or a license to drive one, and my neighborhood is okay but a lot of the places I shop are iffy in terms of who you might run into, especially after dark; so lengthening days were something to celebrate. Now that I have a car and spend a lot of my fiction-writing time fantasizing about vampires, I like those long nights. But I'm still an astronomy nerd, so I do at least make sure my son knows what a solstice is.

This year, since the first night of Hanukkah fell on the solstice, we got a little no-battery flashlight for my son as a two-holidays-in-one gift. We don't play up the gift-giving aspect of Hanukkah. Frankly, just having homemade applesauce and potato pancakes (and store-bought jelly doughnuts) is gift enough, especially since anyone who's made latkes knows that the smell of that oil is the gift that keeps on giving. It's been days now, and my apartment was still smelling like stale cooking oil as of last night. I think if I made latkes all eight nights, we'd be smelling it until next Hanukkah.

I'm a non-rancorous atheist who celebrates Christmas. I was raised with Christmas. I like presents. I already have one day a year when there's lots of cake to eat and plenty of presents for me, most of which are either books or chocolate. If I can make that two days a year, I don't care whose idea it was or whose birth we're allegedly celebrating.

I've read The Trouble With Christmas by Tom Flynn. I understand the argument against an atheist celebrating a holiday belonging to a religion she doesn't believe in.

I also see this argument as beginning a potentially dangerous trend. What's next? Do I not get any dark chocolate butter creams on February 14th because Valentine's Day technically has "Saint" at the beginning of it? For that matter, do I have to call our Thursday park days something else because the word Thursday is derived from the old Norse and used to specifically refer to Thor and am I trying to make people think this is some kind of Viking gathering or something?

That's the thing with Flynn's argument that non-believers should refuse to have anything to do with stuff we consider to be based on old superstitions. What, pray tell, would we have left?

I do see his point about not partaking in a holiday you don't enjoy just because most of the rest of our country does. I don't celebrate any part of Christmas I don't enjoy. I make the foods I like, shop only for my very nearest and dearest (and refuse to get all stressed out about it, no matter how much the retailers beg), and listen to strictly non-obnoxious music. (This year it's mostly either Brian Setzer wailing away, or Anonymous 4 sweetly and solemnly filling my house with beautiful medieval carols. My rule is that it has to be music that sounds good no matter what. If I'd mind hearing it in July, I don't turn it on in December.)

We don't have a crèche. We did when I was a kid, and I miss it (it was very small, beautiful, and delicate); but that's definitely Christian, and it just wouldn't be right to have it in our house. We do have a tree -- a fake one, for allergy reasons -- and it's decorated in a predominant Jack Skellington theme.

We don't tell my son there's a Santa, because I want him to understand that his father and I work very hard to make him happy and get him things he'd like for Christmas. (There are other reasons we don't tell him there's a Santa, but I may or may not be writing an article on the subject for an upcoming issue, and either I'll do it there or I'm not up to that kind of fight. So we'll leave it at that, at least for now.) My son has been giving us (and his grandparents, aunt, and uncle) gifts since his third Christmas, and I've always had him give his presents first at any family gathering, so that he'll get the point that it isn't just about him -- and that it's a lot of fun to watch someone open what you carefully made or chose for them. And if you don't think that a homemade gift can be a blast, you've never been the recipient of a limited-edition "The Ninja Reindeer and The Attack of the Kung-Foo-A-Tron!" comic book, in which our heroes Ginger and Berry go up against the foul Doctor Bratwurst.

In the last couple of years, we've also started celebrating a mild version of St. Nicholas' day, in which traditionally children leave their notes for St. Nick in a shoe, and he takes them and leaves a little treat in said shoe. I like this idea. It gives the big guy some lead time, you know?

My son has a lot of fun composing these letters, because both his parents are humor writers and readers and we love his way with words, so he knows his work will be appreciated.

Here, reprinted with his express permission, is his letter from last year, written when he was nine:
 
Dear St. Nicholas:

How are you? I hope my shoes aren't stinky. That would be bad.

So wait. Are you Santa, or are you some other guy named Saint Nick?

[in the border, pointing to a tear in the paper: "Sorry 'bout the rip."]

What do I want, well, let's see now.

Chocolate frogs are good.

Hot Wheels Speed Trap.

And Club Penguin membership.

(and unlimited hugs from Mom.)

Well, I think that's about it. So. See you (or not see you) later. :-)
 
Yes. He penciled in an emoticon.

So. Getting back to the point of this posting.

I explained a shortened version of all this at park day last week, and everyone was really cool with it. I think I managed to get across the idea that, yes, we're secular, but we still know how to party.

Books and chocolate. That's all I'm saying.

Dark chocolate.

And Happy Whatever to you, dear readers.