It's one week until Christmas day. The cookies are baked, and the shopping?... well - is that ever really "done"?

Like (I'm guessing) most Americans, we celebrate a "secular" Christmas. Yes, we were brought up on what the "true" meaning of Christmas is - we were reminded every year by Linus's soliloquy in the Peanuts Christmas special. We watched The Little Drummer Boy.

Of course, there were also all of the Santa-centric specials as well, and as a kid, what was better than a morning full of new toys?

I was raised in a decidedly non-religious home. We never went to church. My mother claimed to be an atheist, and my dad went to the UUC (what my friend affectionately refers to as "the hippy church") when he was young.

There are jokes about families who only go to church twice a year (Easter and Christmas), but we didn't even do that.

When I was about 10, I met my new best friend. His father was the new minister of the Methodist church, so I started going because of the youth group, and because we both liked to sing (we sang in the church choir). I tried my best to "believe", but it felt false because I absolutely did not. None of it made sense, and the more I learned, the more it seemed absurd.

Ultimately, I just stopped going, and have only set foot in churches for weddings and as a tourist (in those old magnificent cathedrals in DC, NYC, and Europe).

One thing that seems to be missing this time around is the "War on Christmas" that supposedly started happening when being "PC" (now known as "Woke") became popular among those who actually care about other people's feelings. When "Christmas" events started becoming "Holiday" events, the RW howled in dismay.

Things are just different now. Malls were already on the way out, and with COVID replacing in-person shopping with online shopping, it was the last nail in the coffin. With streaming, there's no more shared experience of the Christmas specials.

For me personally, this year is a mixed bag. The election results have cast a pall, and with family getting older and harder to buy for, the joy just isn't there. We're not even buying a tree or putting up our outside decorations. The funk is real.

Of course, spending the eve and the morning with my lovely wife and the doggies will be wonderful as always, so I still have that going for me, which is nice.

Is it enough? I guess it will have to be.