Don’t fear ‘Seasonal Greetings Disorder’

A few years ago I wrote about what I’ve come to view as “Seasonal Greetings Disorder.” Sadly, we’ve made little progress in the U.S. and 2012 is no different. People still bristle at being hailed with the “wrong” greeting.

The other day I was verbally assaulted on the phone. After answering with my preferred “Happy Holidays,” my interlocutor angrily asked, “Don’t you mean Merry Christmas?” On the inside I was all, “B——— I don’t know your life!” But on the audible outside, I said, “Why yes of course, Merry Fishmas—What? No Sir! How may I direct your call?”

Despite the constant whining about whose holiday is having war waged against it, this year is unique, because there’s one group we don’t have to worry about offending with our “happy holidays” platitudes and our “season’s greetings” schlock—and I’m not talking about Jehovah’s Witnesses (who don’t observe Christmas, Easter, birthdays, or other holidays and customs with pagan origins).

No, I’m talking about the enormous crop of neo-Mayans who won’t stop bemoaning the end of days scheduled for Dec. 21! No matter what you say to these people, they respond, “Well the world’s ending before [Insert Holiday Here] anyway.”

I have heard vigorous proclamations of the world’s end, with many an Internet-based “factoid” and a lot of hokum to back up the claims. For example, like, did you know the Mayan calendar just ends on Dec. 21?

It’s funny, because the Julian calendar (that’s the one we use in the U.S.) just “ends” on Dec. 31. But, as we’ve seen for the last several thousand years, after each year ends, a new one starts!

Accepting the Mayan calendar’s “end” as a prediction of our impending doom is tantamount to declaring Judgment Day because you tore off the last page of your Cuddly Puppies desk calendar.

The Mayan calendar is cyclical like our own, but people are putting considerable weight behind the “end” of the long count calendar. There’s no legitimate historical evidence that the end of the cycle means the end of the world.

Wikipedia, the most respected encyclopedia on the Internet, states:

“For the ancient Maya, it was a huge celebration to make it to the end of a whole cycle,” Sandra Noble, executive director of the Foundation for the Advancement of Mesoamerican Studies in Crystal River, Florida, said. To render Dec. 21, 2012, as a doomsday event or moment of cosmic shifting, she says, is “a complete fabrication and a chance for a lot of people to cash in.”

And if that’s not enough to convince you. Who cares what the Mayans believed? We don’t use their calendar, and most people don’t worship their gods. Personally, I thank Hunahpu for the sunrise each day, and Xbalanque for the moon and stars each night, but the world is going to keep on spinning!

However, just in case, we wish you a merry apocalypse, and a happy no-year.