Annotated Christmas 2014 Bonus Strip #3
I drew a monochrome version of this as bonus art for one of the trade paperbacks — I think it was Volume 2?
Pretty sure that version came first, and I liked it so much, I updated it into this red-and-green-bedecked version for the website. But maybe the online omake came first, and I recast it in monochrome for the books.
I liked it enough to draw it twice, is the point.
Genuinely not sure if the media finally milked dry all the “War On Christmas” rhetoric, or if when I stopped watching the Daily Show/Colbert Report, I just got out-of-range to be able to hear it.
Bennett: There is a War On Christmas in this country!
Cybele: Absolutely! The celebration is just three short months, from October to December, and if you drive around town you might see things that are not Christmas
decorations!
Bennett: Why is it that even when you’re agreeing with me, you sound like you’re making fun of me?
Cybele: A guy on YouTube said it’s called Poe’s Law.
Bah. Either Christmas is every day or no day. If what they said was true, every day would be that special. If what they said was true, they wouldn’t care about the decorations because they aren’t the point.
But they can’t get behind that idea, because being “good” more than a few days a year is too hard. They can’t get behind that idea, because Christmas in this country is really all about selling things, but if your additional selling thing motivation happens every day, it loses any ability to sell additional things.
Usually when I say that sort of thing around Christians, they say that I’m just looking for an excuse to not need to take my tree down. I generally take that as confirmation that they’re focused on the wrong things, because as mentioned, Christmas shouldn’t be about the decorations, and yet that’s where some ridiculously large portion of their focus is.
To be clear, I don’t know if I’d be a Christian if I ever heard Jesus’ actual message. What I am certain of is that if there ever was a Jesus to deliver Jesus’ actual message, it’s been corrupted too much at this point to trust it. But it feels more likely to me that it started out as corrupted, never really intending to do what it claimed.