MOJAVE MULESKINNERS

Well my foes and all my friends, tis yet another Christmas. And we all know what Christmas is. It’s a little like a storm that we see coming and can’t avoid. Ordinary shopping like for groceries is being jostled around in stores, flipped off in parking lots, honked at on the streets and waiting in lines to pay for a single item. It’s true I tell ya, and there’s few of us that are not happy to see it over. Still, I cherish the many memories I have back across these many years of the faces of those I love opening presents and the laughter. To watch a child with a brand new wish come true, seems to make it all worthwhile and serves to erase the cuss fights and griping we endured to deliver it.

 

And most probably, if we listen or observe during this holiday, we will see or hear a thing that reminds us of the reason we have set aside this day to remember. Of course it’s always at the forefront for those who are dedicated Christians. For they attend their church and listen to their pastors, preachers or priests, and are reminded in each sermon.

 

But there are those of us like me who have walked through the years singing carols, decorating trees, and bowing heads at each prayer, and participating, who are the unwashed secular itinerants of Christmas. Then one day we read that the holiday should not be called Christmas. That it’s strictly a Christian holiday and serves only to get in the way, so to speak, of others that are simply not Christians. This then, gives pause for analysis by the unwashed, for we have so long walked in the festivity of this day. Indeed since our earliest memories. Then upon further reflection, we rise to defend the right to be pushed around in shopping malls and parking lots for it’s Christmas! A day my parents celebrated and their parents before them. A Santa Clause who arrived horseback, or rode a mule, or appeared at the big Christmas tree in the small country school house. A day where men shook hands, passed a bottle, and seemed to forgive one another of their intrusions. It’s alright to gripe about it. Even deny its reason for being. But never to not celebrate it or call it just a holiday.

Does this make me then, a Christian? Perhaps? Maybe not by the standards of most who proclaim to be Christian, but it raises the ire in me to have it threatened and by whom? The Jews aren’t threatening it. The Muslims aren’t directly attacking it. Nor any other religious organizations. No! It’s the Atheists. A relatively small number of people who would change it.

 

Well, you won’t change it for me. Me! The wanderer who has long walked among my people and celebrated Christmas in many ways. The money in my pocket still proclaims the conviction we have for God. Christmas, still proclaims the arrival of a man born of a virgin who it is said came to help save me from eternal darkness. And I, after careful thought, just may be brainwashed enough to defend with vigor, your right to believe whatever you want. But you will not detract from Christmas! Christians believe that those who fail to adhere to the word will go to hell.

 

Well, I reckon as far as I’m concerned, those Atheists who don’t want to celebrate Christmas, can just go to hell.

 

~ Weakeyes Cody & Miz Eula 2007