There are so many things to celebrate. It is not enough that we have a holiday season now, nor even just Christmas and New Year's Eve but we have, in our house, Hogmanay as well as Hanukkah at the neighbours, an old pal celebrates Kwanzaa and I suspect my university pal who married into an extremely happy Hindu family now knows far more about Pancha Ganapati than he could have ever imagined. But that is not enough:

• Winter solstice gets far less attention than it deserves. Even though it's four or five days before Christmas, it needs pumping up. Icelandic pagans are holding up their end of the bargain remembering that Yule is more about the beginning of the return of the sun than any jolly old elf.
• Celebrating the 150th anniversary of South Carolinian secession from the Union is less certain a cause for celebration. Not only is it divisive but arguments are a bit thin: "We are not celebrating slavery, we are celebrating the courage and the tenacity of the people who were prepared to go out and defend their homes." Homes, one supposes, paid for with the slave labour of others.
• Office celebration is, for me, its own singular thing screaming for its own separate identification. Not only is there the crush of messaging in contrapunct suggesting on one hand that we ought to get along, given cultural blandification, for no residual reason (and against the bottom line) while making sure we do not actually get along all that much in case we face uncomfortable claims (again against that bottom line). Year end office holiday needs to be given its own date, I say, perhaps the second Friday in December so that we can do all that uncomfortable risk ridden stuff on one day and get it over with.
• Sports related holidaying also needs its own recognition as part of the cultural mix. Whether we are talking about village games going back hundreds of years or the imposition of commercial sporting events on previously sacred (and therefore slow) dates, there is a desire to observe if not participate in things, perhaps to bet in some cultures, perhaps to drift off to after a meal of to much sausage stuffing by the amateur and occasional imbiber. Reason itself from recognition, I say.

Too many holidays? I'll have none of that, thank you very much. While we may want to skip the secessionists and pass up the killing of the wren, if we are truly to make this holiday season stuff work we need to be more articulate, more particular.