Dealing With Headaches

If there is one thing that can help lower pain, it’s having someone to blame it on. Most people wind up blaming themselves, which is usually the wrong thing to do (unless you’ve done something really bone-headeded like drink too much or pick a fight with The Bionic Woman, then you better blame yourself). We are under an incredible amount of pressure during any holiday time that involves bad weather and giving an absurd amount of gifts.

Of course, we could just stop all the madness and just not buy anyone anything for Christmas, but that would make too much sense.

Anyway, who can we blame all of out December miseries on? That’s right — the bloody Victorians! If they weren’t already dead, I’d kill ‘em!

The Bloody Victorians

A long time ago, in a galaxy far, far away, there was a little green and pleasent land called England, ruled by the beloved Queen Victoria. This was a time when women basically had to stay at home and be kept working senselessly so they wouldn’t get organized. So the Victorians invented Christmas Dinner, the Christmas Tree, Santa Claus in his gift giving state, Christmas cards, Christmas carols and Christmas cake (which, thank God, just never caught on in America) and fiddling with tinsel and cleaning up after the dogs after they ate the tinsel.

Since England was considered the Fountain of Civilization, other countries had to follow England’s lead, especially former colonials like America and (to a certain extent) Canada. The traditions and keeping the women barefoot and pregnant by straining to achieve Perfect Christmas-dom were adopted and somehow, they just kept on keeping on.

Midwinter Festivals

Now, mid-winter festivals tended to always have some sort of feasting and celebration of the growing light. One of the points of the mid-winter festivals was faith that spring would return. Millenia ago, this was heavy stuff for our ancestors, wondering if spring would ever return. Somehow, deep in our genes, is the ancestral memory of living through the Ice Age. Having a big feast on the shortest day of the year was an incredible act of faith…that, and it was something to do.

The Victorians took this mid-winter feast and act of faith in the return of spring to an absurd extreme. Unfortunately, it caught like a virus and we can’t seem to find a good innoculation against it. As Latka once said in Taxi, “The only thing that seperates us from the animals are mindless superstitions and pointless rituals.”

So, have a headache because you realise you’ll never get all of your shopping and mailing packages off in time and still need to hold down a job? Now you know who to blame and swear bloody murder at. There. Don’t you feel much better now?

You’re welcome.