bahumbug.

This year, I decided to read "A Christmas Carol" by Charles Dickens. As I was reading it I wondered why I had never read it before. Maybe it's because I watch "Muppets Christmas Carol" every year and that fills the void. Needless to say, I loved it. Great, great novel. Puts the Christmas spirit in perspective. 

One of the first scenes of the book, Scrooge is talking with his nephew, Fred, about how much he hates Christmas. Fred comes back at him with this quote that explains it perfectly, 

"But I am sure I have always thought of Christmas time, when it has come round -- apart from the veneration due to its sacred name and origin, if anything belonging to it can be apart from that -- as a good time; a kind, forgiving, charitable, pleasant time: the only time I know of, in the long calendar of the year, when men and women seem by one consent to open their shut-up hearts freely, and to think of people below them as if they really were fellow-passengers to the grave, and not another race of creatures bound on other journeys. And therefore, uncle, though it has never put a scrap of gold or silver in my pocket, I believe that it has done me good, and will do me good; and I say, God bless it!"

No bahumbugs here :)