War on Christmas: The Detante of Jesus' Afterbirth

The trip down here to Myrtle Beach was an interesting one, no surprise to anyone who's traveled during the holidays. I had to park in the Holiday Overflow lot at Dulles, which is cheaper (cheers my inner Jew) but further from the terminal and more inconvenient. I was able to self-checkin and get through security without any trouble, but I had to laugh when I got to my "terminal".

The flight I took was a United Flight operated by Mesa, one of their regional carriers (which I thought they stopped using after they went bankrupt and started Ted). We left out of terminal G, which I had never been to before, so I followed the signs and got on my bus, and we drove and drove and drove until I realized we were in the part of the airport where UPS and FedEx and all the courier services fly from. In the middle of the runway, away from everything else lies the lost Dulles Terminal of G, and there I waited for my flight. They let me hand them my suitcase on the tarmack though, and the flight was uneventful so no complaints, but quite surreal.

Despite being an enemy combatant to the forces of Christmas (namely: Hallmark, US retailers, and the makers of Rolos), the soliders of Chrismahanukwanzakah have agreed to detante today to allow others to worship as they so choose. Many people spent today inside a chuch praying to the baby Jesus, while my parents and I (all lapsed Catholics) wandered up and down the pier in Myrtle Beach:



I can tell that you're jealous.

The neighbors across the street are friend's of my parents, so last night we went over there for an oh-so-denominational Santa-fest. The "kids" -- all late 20s to mid 30s -- apparently did not get the memo when they went to the bar at noon that they were drinking a marathon and not a 5k. Suffice to say they were all soused. One guy and I had the same conversation 15 minutes apart.

The highlight of the evening though was the after-dinner show, in which the daughter of our hosts decided she wanted to go bowling (because dear readers, Christmas-eve without bowling is like Thanksgiving without pizza) and insisted she stopped drinking six hours before (the shots I saw her take and the bottle of Austi Spumante she was lugging around must have been non-alcoholic). First she fought with her parents who told her no, then she argued against going out with her boyfriend who wanted to leave, it was a very bipolar Christmas indeed.

So very nice to be the one watching the scene instead of the one making the scene.