Gazing dreamily out of Appalachian Dining Hall ‘ one of the few respectable-looking buildings on our dreary campus ‘ I pondered the overall necessity of the holiday season. Does one really need to celebrate the Festival of Lights and/or Jesus’ birth every time our lonely little world completes a lopsided circle around a fiery ball of hydrogen?

Rationally speaking, for most Americans the answer is of course not. Who actually needs Hanukkah or Christmas? Well, for one thing, both of these religious holidays instigate the immortal feeling of hope by commemorating (supposed) miracles. In Hanukkah there is the miracle of the eight-day-lasting oil, while Christmas celebrates the birth of a king and savior from the womb of a virgin. Traditionally, and religiously, this is indeed what the holiday season should entail ‘ an annual resurgence of hope and lightness (if you will) to a country who sits smugly on top of the world and behaves as if it doesn’t need such trivial atrocities.

Instead, the holiday season inevitably (not to mention embarrassingly) reveals the despicable voracity of the American people: shopping for gifts, evergreen trees, wreaths, gifts, menorahs, dreidels, gelt and more gifts. And to my utmost (Catholic) disappointment, Christmas has actually become a secular holiday.

To think that non-religious leeches have taken it upon themselves to make Christmas an American tradition has completely altered the holiday’s customary intentions in such a way that the first word people think of when they hear ‘Christmas’ is ‘gifts’ (or if you’re still little tyke, ‘presents’).

And if that is not bad enough, why is it that I see my neighbors’ trees disposed of on the 26th, when the holiday supposedly begins on that date and continues past the New Year? Maybe we’re all just plain stupid.

I wish it were that simple, but sadly there is a more complex answer. Refusing to stick with cold, hard, moral truths and instead going on with our headless, brainless, mainstream 21st century culture of spend more, buy more, have more, fill-in-the-blank more, etc. What tangible, everlasting virtue does Hanukkah bring to the Jews? Hope. And what moral does Christmas teach to Christians? Hope. To non-religious people? Perhaps since they’re not religious they already have an infinite amount of hope within themselves. But this is what the holiday season ideally should convey: a feeling of optimism for our lost little boy world, that in due time we shall indeed rise out of our apathetic, MTV-dulled brains and realize that there is indeed something greater than ourselves besides our egos and the latest flat-screen HDTV.

Happy holidays, all. Now excuse me while I go to Barnes and Noble.