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'Tis Always Some Season

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There is some dispute among true believers as to when this festival "for the rest of us" began. Over the past few years, however, it has taken on a life of its own. Earlier this month, Sean Ryan of Allouez, Wis., expressed his indignation over a Nativity display at the City Hall in nearby Green Bay by suggesting that a Festivus pole be put up alongside the manger scene.

Now that we have a holiday spoofing holidays, the only holiday that seems waiting to be born is a holiday that commemorates holidays themselves -- not only Christmas and Kwanzaa and Hanukkah but also the holidays that celebrate extraterrestrial abductions (March 20) and yo-yos (June 10) and hugging (Jan. 21) and Winnie the Pooh (Jan. 18).

So with the power vested in me by, well, the same folks who gave us the Festival of Enormous Changes at the Last Minute (Dec. 30), I hereby proclaim today to be, in addition to Roots Day and Festivus, the day to remember that, whether you like it or not, every day really is a holiday. Happy Happy Holidays Day!

prothero@bu.edu

Stephen Prothero is the chairman of Boston University's Department of Religion and the author

of "Religious Literacy: What Every American Needs to Know -- and Doesn't."

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