T'isn't the season!

Not yet anyway. I mean, it's still early November and most people haven't taken down the charred remains of their Guy Fawkes Night effigies, so why are people already foaming at the mouth over Christmas decorations?

Pictured: British people preparing to burn would-be-assassin Guy Fawkes
in effigy. Because after four hundred years on, they know how to hold a grudge.

He's just asking that Starbucks
bludgeon customers with his religious
beliefs. Is that so unreasonable?

Here, click on this. It's a video from a guy called Joshua Feuerstein, who's upset that the holiday-themed coffee cups are just red and green instead of something more Christmas specific:

"You know in the age of political correctness, I think we've become so open minded that our brains have literally, do you re-lize that Starbucks wanted to take Christ and Christmas off of their brand new cups? That's why they're just plain red. In fact did you realize that Starbucks isn't allowed to say 'Merry Christmas' to customers?"

-Joshua Feuerstein, angry about-wait, 

when was Jesus ever on the to-go mug?

"Fine, you got me, 'Merry Christmas.'
Whatever. This isn't like my life or anything."

To combat the erosion of all basic human kindness symbolized by a coffee chain not reenforcing his worldview with every latte, he's oh-so cleverly taken to giving his name as 'Merry Christmas' so baristas are forced to hand him a steaming cup full of reason for the season. His hope is that you too will dupe the staff into wishing you a Merry Birth of our God/Savior Jesus in defiance of company policy and then take a selfie. Oh yes, it's a movement. Like, it's going viral or something. So slow cap Joshua Feuerstein, slow clap. I guess he's really put those secular humanists in their place.

Also enraging people is this mall's Santa. Well, ok, not the Santa himself, but rather the stark white 1960's ultra-mod living room he's for some reason living in.

This year all the children are getting the same thing:
a grim reminder of climate change and the impending
famines and water wars that will soon be upon us.

Originally Santa would visit children,
offer them a blind taste test and whip the
kids who chose Pepsi. Merry Christmas!

(source: history)

The mall's management was trying not to offend anyone with anything too Jesus-y, so they nixed Santa's workshop in favor of the set from Space: 1999, which I think can generously be called a misstep. I applaud the attempt to be more inclusive of families who don't celebrate Christmas or maybe aren't into the religious aspect, but does anyone really get offended by Santa? Is he really that religious? He was invented as a 1930's Coke ad (the soda, not like coccaine), so unless you have some serious religious convictions about soft drinks I'm not sure there's a whole lot to object to. 

Obviously there was a backlash against Santa's Fortress of Solitude, because 'tis the season for moral outrage. Campaigns on Twitter, Facebook and a petition on Change.org with, I shit you not, 16,000 signatures have prompted the mall to add Christmas trees and this seems to have made everybody happy, or at least diminished the holiday rage that burns in the hearts of Christians like a hell-fire of righteous fury and really, isn't that what Christmas is all about?

"What Christmas is all about? Oh for crying out loud, look, I don't
know. I mean it's like November. Why are we even on this already?"

-Jesus, pretty goddamn sick of this