"If I could work my will," said Scrooge indignantly, "every idiot that goes about with 'Merry Christmas' on his lips should be boiled in his own pudding and buried with a stake of holly through his heart!" From Charles Dickens' A Christmas Carol

Snow is falling outside my window as I write this. Thanksgiving is well behind us, and at our house preparations for Christmas are well underway. I've brought my Mannheim Steamroller and Trans-Siberian Orchestra CDs out of exile, tubs of decorations have been hauled down from the attic, and my VISA card is getting its annual workout. Christmastime is a big season for almost everyone. It's big for givers, it's big for receivers, and it's big for retailers. Unfortunately, it's also a big season for Hysterical Hacks.

Early in my blog I introduced this sad group of people who, for reasons real or imagined, spend their lives pointing out the dark cloud in every silver lining. Like bargain hunters at a post-Thanksgiving sale, Hysterical Hacks fairly swarm at this festive time of year. They're busy writing letters to editors and making the rounds of the morning talk shows, decking halls with black crepe and bringing ill tidings of no joy which shall be to all people who don't see things their way.

Here are some samples of this year's dreck:

"Running all those Christmas lights contributes to global warming!" 

"Santa Claus is too fat!"  

"'Ho-Ho-Ho' sounds like a swear word!"

"You can't say 'Merry Christmas!' It offends me!"

"You didn't say 'Merry Christmas!' Now I'm offended!"

One must wonder at the earnestness and tenacity of these charmless folk. Maybe the cold weather brings out the killjoy in them. Or perhaps they're cursed with Grinch-like hearts, three sizes too small.

I have to wonder how my Christmas lights put the world at peril. Do two strings of tiny incandescent bulbs really have any significant impact on my carbon footprint? I know there are people who switch their lights on at the end of the high-school football season, and some peoples' yards are visible from space. But what's the real per-household impact of outdoor Christmas lighting that runs for four weeks out of the year? I suppose there's also a question of whether cutting down a live tree is as environmentally damaging as making an artificial tree from petroleum products. Let's save that for next year.

There's no denying that Santa is on the paunchy side, but who appointed him a role model for physical fitness? Can't a fat man be cheerful and giving? Isn't this discrimination against the portly? (Hacks hate it when you measure them with their own stick! I should get told off shortly.) Scrooge, on the other hand, is described as lean and flinty-faced, which makes him the perfect poster boy for the Hack crowd.

I've heard that Australian Santas are laughing with "Ha-ha-ha" instead of "Ho-ho-ho" because the latter phrase may be construed as a slight against women. If that's true then I need to ask: What kind of moron can't tell an outburst of jollyness from the lyrics of a rap song? While we're lowering the bar, maybe we should rename all those big concrete things that hold back rivers. "Honey, for vacation let's visit the Grand Canyon and Hoover Darn." As long as we're at it, let's give the Jolly Green Giant a good scolding, too!

The last two seem to go hand-in-hand, because someone takes offense in both cases. I wonder if it's purely a Hack trait or if some members of the general population go out of their way to be offended. If someone wishes a reasonable person good wishes for a holiday which that person doesn't celebrate, how would that reasonable person respond? "Gee, I don't really celebrate that day, but thank you for the kind thought." Perhaps the real problem isn't offensiveness of the part of the well-wisher as it is a lack of graciousness on the part of the receiver.

Let's restore Christmas as a season of giving. How about if we give each other a little space? I promise not to shove a manger down your throat if you wish me "Happy Holidays." Will you promise not to garrote me with tinsel if I wish you "Merry Christmas?" I promise to run my lights only after dark and I'll shut them off on my way to bed.

Merry Christmas to all my Christian friends, and to friends who celebrate the day for purely secular reasons. To my friends who celebrate other things at this time of year, Season's Greetings.  And to all the Hysterical Hacks out there in the blogosphere (and you know who you are), I have a Season's Greeting especially for you: "Bah! Humbug!!"