'Tis The Season

There will be no cartoon posted on Christmas Day.

There are thousands of U.S. troops in the Middle East and other parts of the world who will not be able to celebrate this holiday season with family and friends. They are in our thoughts. We wish them best and thank them from the bottom of our hearts for the protection they provide us. Here are some organizations that help make their work more enjoyable (also click on the "Support Our Troops" banner at right):

Operation Gratitude
'Any Soldier' Care Packages
Hero Miles
Let's Bring 'Em Home!

For a capitalistic perspective on the importance of Christmas, read The Ayn Rand Institute op-ed by Leonard Peikoff: Why Christmas Should Be More Commercial.

Christmas in America is an exuberant display of human ingenuity, capitalist productivity, and the enjoyment of life. Yet all of these are castigated as "materialistic"; the real meaning of the holiday, we are told, is assorted Nativity tales and altruist injunctions (e.g., love thy neighbor) that no one takes seriously.

In fact, Christmas as we celebrate it today is a 19th-century American invention. The freedom and prosperity of post Civil War America created the happiest nation in history. The result was the desire to celebrate, to revel in the goods and pleasures of life on earth. Christmas (which was not a federal holiday until 1870) became the leading American outlet for this feeling.

Posted by Forkum at December 24, 2003 07:56 AM