But I will have the biggest Deepavali fireworks show around every year.

I totally disagree. On one side are Christian conservatives who want something to feel pissed off about. So they make up total shit about some fictional group of people who are crying “down with the Xtian stuff” (there is no such group). And they send out email forwards indignant about this imagined enemy, thus creating the necessary flames of passion within their own kind. They get their own feathers ruffled up so that they have something to feel self righteous about.

And on the other side are Liberal secularists (are there other kinds ?) who are baffled to think that there may be some amongst them (there are none of course) who are actually perpetrating senseless anti Xtian propoganda and trying to make Christmas into the holidays and other such.

Inbetween are the pandering fools who actually believe this game and try to fall in line with one side or the fictional other.

Secularism is not about wiping out religions. It’s about harmonious co-existance. That means I celebrate Christmas, Hannukah, Kwanzaa, Pongal and Eid. As a friend aptly observed, “You pagans are always looking for a chance to party, aren’t you ?”

I just don’t see what’s wrong with Hindu, Muslim, Christian alike celebrating Santa’s birth.

Frank Costanza: Many Christmases ago, I went to buy a doll for my son. I reached for the last one they had, but so did another man. As I rained blows upon him, I realized there had to be another way. Cosmo Kramer: What happened to the doll? Frank Costanza: It was destroyed. But out of that a new holiday was born: a Festivus for the rest of us!

It’s a little sad to see christmas getting increasingly watered down, pulped into this bland, neutralised one-size-fits-all winter holiday. Most of my younger siblings/nephews/nieces’ schools don’t do Nativity plays or carols anymore, not for a long while. This has all been cordoned off to cold, gloomy churches that hardly anyone attends. I loved participating in this, even though religiously we were out of it and we didn’t do the tree etc at home, there was still lots of gift exchanging, parties and dinners with friends/ workmates(albeit with turkey-flavoured quorn, blech). I loved the tv – the traditional “Snowman”, and the plethora of cheesy family movies. I loved the lights, the tackier the better, the hot chestnut stalls, and the first time you heard “fairytale of new york” in a supermarket you knew Christmas was on its way. In many ways I “did” christmas more than Eid since that tends to revolve mainly on home and family, while xmas was infinitely more fun.

Now of course xmas starts getting bandied about by October, and you can see the marketing campaigns trying to stir comsumers into a frenzy of desperate gift purchasing. Come December and no one seems to give a toss about it much anymore.