A heathen’s Christmas greeting

Although I call it my traditional one, my Christmas greeting is not traditional in the standard sense of the word. But you gotta realize this is coming from someone whose kids remember John Lennon’s “Happy Xmas (War is Over)” as being the Christmas song they heard most often at home while growing up. I call my greeting traditional solely because I have used it before and will continue doing so into the foreseeable future in the hopes of making it a tradition.

Thus, in passing along Christmas greetings to you, I once again excerpt from another of the greatest Christmas songs, “The Rebel Jesus” by Jackson Browne:

And once a year when Christmas comes
We give to our relations
And perhaps we give a little to the poor
If the generosity should seize us
But if any one of us should interfere
In the business of why there are poor
They get the same as the rebel Jesus

But pardon me if I have seemed
To take the tone of judgment
For I’ve no wish to come between
This day and your enjoyment
In a life of hardship and of earthly toil
We have need for anything that frees us
So I bid you pleasure
And I bid you cheer
From a heathen and a pagan
On the side of the rebel Jesus

“Happy Xmas (War is Over),” John Lennon