Sure, I hate the Big Red pederast and his magical ass-ramming reindeer. I hate candy canes. I hate dead, decorated conifers. I hate tiny, twinkling strands of fire-hazard. I hate chestnuts. I hate "pah-rumpa pum pum" and "ring ding-dingaling" too. I would hate both mistletoe and poinsettias, except for that they are deadly poison, and thus joy my heart to see them welcomed into homes, brought near to inquisitive infants and beloved pets. I, in my heart of hearts, do believe that every fool who goes about with "Merry Christmas" on his lips should be boiled to death in his own Christmas pudding and buried with a stake of holly through his heart. I both "bah" and "humbug."

But, more than I hate any of this, I hate the sensitive gentiles and their "Holidays."

I hate "Holiday Decorations" and "Holiday Sales" and "Holiday Music." I hate "Holiday Parties" and "Holiday Break." I hate the "Holidays" because the ruse is so transparent. For the love of all that is holy (can you identify a holy thing, lil' gentile drummer boy?) why call it a "Holiday Break"? It's quite obviously centered around only one "holiday": Christmas. Half the time Chanukah (hardly a holiday at all)— which, moored to the Jewish lunar calendar, floats freely from late November to early January— is done and over with well before this vacation begins. It's obviously a Christmas break. In fact, any time the term "Holiday" is applied, it is only to replace the word "Christmas." Why lie?

Why lie? In the name of sensitivity, I'm told. And, it's a strange sensitivity at that: In my life, I've never known a single JewMuslimBuddhistAtheistAgnostic to grouse at a "Holiday" office party being called a "Christmas" party, never seen one to kvetch about the "Christmas" break carrying a Christian name— largely because these are Christian celebrations of Christian traditions. We are fine with that. We're big kids— or, at the very least, not stupid kids. It's a "holiday" party, decorated in red and green, gathered around a blinking, tinseled tree-corpse, and the boss turns up dressed as an overweight, inebriated pseudo-Saint. Clearly, Rakim and I can pick out the subtle influence of Ramadan on this party's planning.

Goyim of the world, there's no reason to be sensitive to our feelings, because we don't care. I reject this hollow act of inclusion, because it is that very gesture that, over all else, disgusts me: I do not wish to be included, I do not wish to be like you. I prefer to at least retain my dignity as I watch 5000 years of tradition dissipate like the thin, cheap smoke from a waxy Chanukah candle. Please, spare me the "Chanukah bush" and cheap, gilded "Happy Hanukah" banners. Spare me your off-key (yet hearty) choruses of the "Dreidel" song. Spare me your botched attempts at pronouncing "Chanukah" (the "ch" is guttural, at the back of the throat. Please accept that you cannot make the sound without making an ass of yourself.) Please spare me.

It's a Christian country, despite what they try and sell you in the early pages of the Bill of Rights. This is a Truth which We (Rakim and Chan and Morgan and I) hold to be self evident— the only folks who seem deluded about the whole affair are the Christians themselves, to which I can only say: "These are the rulers of the free world? How they ever got the Holy Land away from the Arabs (who, by the by, invented little things like algebra and optics and numbers), I'll never fathom."

Additionally, I hate how the "Christmas Spirit" has metastasized and spread to Chanukah. Let me be the one to funnel this little historical tidbit into your darling, tow-heads: Chanukah is a meaningless holiday. Throughout the entire history of World Jewry, Chanukah has been no more than a place holder. It was original celebrated to make up for missing Sukkoth— a very important harvest holiday— during the Maccabean War, and kept around to commemorate a dubious "miracle" of energy efficiency. It only became a tinsel coated, yok-style spending extravaganza under the influence of the United States. God Bless that red, white and blue! Heck, throw on a little Green and get in the holiday spirit.

So, go, lil gentile drummer boy, bear a Playstation2 unto the Child born in the manger, fall to your knees before that sanctified, red-suited, endomorphic Caucasian, get Bing Crosby and Burl Ives yowling from the 8-track player and save me a mug of eggnog:

It's Christmastime!