Someone just had to go and kidnap Baby Jesus

Before I tell my tale about How Christmas Was Totally Ruined, I thought I'd at least start off with the bright side: Barbara's brother, Earl, showed up for Christmas Eve dinner, stinking of alcohol, wearing nothing other than a Santa hat, clutching a half-empty bottle of Red Dog 20/20. I was quite amused and tried to keep him from coming in the front door, while the kids freaked out, and Barbara grabbed an old towel to drape over his dirty, hairy, noticibly shriveled bottom half. Earl likes to celebrate the holidays -- any holidays -- in the nude. Even when the temperature barely reaches 10 degrees. Something snaps in his head and he takes off all his clothes, leaves them somewhere he won't remember, and then walks the streets raving and spreading his special brand of holiday spirit.

It's actually quite impressive, though I don't think Barbara was very impressed. And she was even less impressed when he passed out, urinated all over our new Pottery Barn couch, and then refused to move so she could see to the mess. Barbara did admit that this Christmas Eve was better than the last, though -- I can't even mention what he did to the last Pottery Barn couch. I'll just say that some stains never go away. But that's Earl and, heck, Christmas is a time for family.

The part of Christmas I didn't enjoy came when we discovered that someone kidnapped Baby Jesus from the Nativity scene on our front lawn. Worse, that Grinch-y someone also popped my life-size, inflatable Homer Simpson Santa with a BB-gun. It was not that our Christmas decorations were vandalized and stolen that bothered me. Baby Jesuses are a dime a dozen at the Great Mall and are easily replaced (though most of the stores had run out of White Baby Jesus by that time, and so we had to put a Black Baby Jesus in the manger). And as for Homer, all he needed was a little Scotch tape and he was good as new.

The real problem was that Barbara, who loves and defends Christmas as if her very life depended on it, and as if everyone who doesn't celebrate it is doomed to burn in the fires of Hell, became insanely hung up on the symbolism of the Kidnapping of Baby Jesus. And, like most people like her, she immediately went to the Internet to read something that would reinforce, rather than challenge, her opinions on the matter, like this and this. So, I got to spend Christmas listening to her bitch constantly about how the Battle for Christmas is like the War on Terror, as some kook named Donald May told her in a dumb editorial:

If we allow Christmas to be taken from our public life and our educational system, if we allow our Constitution to be turned against us, if we fail to be a light of liberty unto the World, we will also deny freedom to a desperate World that will slip further into darkness. Just like the War on Terror, the battle for Christmas will be long and difficult.

Oh for God's sake. Look around. See if you can locate where Christmas isn't.

You can't, can you?

Anyway, she went off on every non-Christian on the planet, whom she described not only as "terrorists violently opposed to our Lord & Savior's birth," but also as stupid, poor, backward, and in great need of our "light of liberty" -- as if saying that would make up for the nasty epithets she used to describe anyone different from herself -- all while the kids were trying to enjoy opening their presents. That was fun. Then she threw out the egg nog once she found out that it did not originate in America. Then she accused me of not listening to her, not caring about her convictions, and loving the Black Baby Jesus more than the White Baby Jesus that was stolen from us. Then she saved Christmas for me and the kids by stomping off to our room and locking the door behind her.

Guess where I got to sleep? That's right. The Pottery Barn couch.

2005 is going to be long and difficult indeed.