The other day I saw a commercial proclaiming “Happy Chrismahanakwanzaka!” I liked the commercial — it was clever, and it had a dancing cell phone and a really awesome black guy with a pipe. Behind this glib and enjoyable commercial, however, are the evident symptoms of a holiday with a disease. And not some sissy illness like chicken pox. A sinister, nasty disease, like syphilis.

So how did Christmas get an STD? Perhaps by trying to be overly inclusive. Christians rightly wanted to be nice and invitational, so everybody came over for the holiday. Then, once the whole neighborhood started celebrating it, its definition was expanded and stretched to the point of non-meaning. It would be akin to the Asian Student Association letting anybody join, then being overrun by Swedes who change the purpose of the club into talking about clogs or collaborating with the Germans or something.

The point of Christmas isn’t eggnog or selflessness or anything else (though it doesn’t exclude them). The point of Christmas is Jesus Christ. As evidence, I present that his name is built into the word. Asinine videos where a claymation reindeer gets over its appendicitis and decides that Christmas is “about loving strangers” is as moronic as saying Martin Luther King Jr. Day is “about commitment.” It’s not, you stupid reindeer, it’s about Martin Luther King Jr. You can still associate things like love or family with the holiday, but they are byproducts of the holiday’s point, not its substance. If we wanted a festival commemorating coupons and bite-sized altruism we would have made Britney Spears Pope a long time ago.

The root of “holiday” is “holyday,” but a lot of Americans could just as easily call Christmas a “materialismday.” I realized just how intense consumerism is when August became an acceptable time to inflate snowmen decorations. To compensate for many whorish major corporations raping a religious holiday in order to peddle crap people don’t need, I plan to try and pump as much unrelated spiritual content into secular holidays as I can. This year I’ve set my sights on Secretary’s Day.

I’ve got nothing against secretaries, but I can pick on them because they don’t exist anymore. (We’ve got “administrative assistants” now, because the title “secretary,” though it denotes an honorable and necessary job, deserves less respect for some reason. We’ll soon re-title Rumsfeld “Administrative Assistant of Defense.”) I plan to bloody secularism’s nose by beating it at its own game. Come April 21, I’ll be organizing a St. Barcanuphius parade in honor of Secretary’s Day (even though St. Barcanuphius, so far as I know, neither was nor ever had a secretary), and will have lots of friends over to talk about the great feats of St. Barcanuphius. We will all wear our St. Barcanuphius bowler hats and drink our holiday chocolate milk and eat traditional St. Barcanuphius falafels while singing St. Barcanuphius troparians. I will do everything I possibly can to obscure and eclipse the original point of the holiday, and I won’t spend a damn cent on any overpriced Hallmark rubbish. There’s a saint for every day of the year, so watch out, Lupus Alert Day.

Before I get a deluge of e-mails defending elves or fruit cake or whatever, know that I like these things too. I look forward to drinking eggnog all year, but I remember that wrapping paper is only the newspaper I’ll be duct-taping over the plunger I’m giving my brother, not his gift. Cards and Crosby are dandy for Christmas, but just like a gift’s wrapping paper, they should only be Christ’s swaddling. The holiday is a sham if its meaning is forgotten or sold. I love Christmas, so I have to chastise it. I bet you’d try and relieve your friend of syphilis, too.

Merry Christmas, and happy holidays.