I don't celebrate corporate holidays.

Before you go, listen to my reasoning. I'm not asking you to agree but simply to think it over.

Because gift-giving and many other aspects of the Christmas festival involve heightened economic activity among both Christians and non-Christians, the holiday has become a significant event and a key sales period for retailers and businesses, the same corporate entities I've chosen to boycott for the remainder of my life. The economic impact of Christmas is a factor that has grown steadily over the past few centuries and is a significant sales period for all retailers. So much so that most major retailers make little profit throughout the year and bank on the holiday season to reach their yearly sales goals. For most of us, if not all of us, this means shopping at Target, the malls and Wal-Mart, all places I try to stay away from at all costs. They are the equivalent of sweat-shops in the United States. Retail stores in this country aren't terribly different than sweat shops in India. An person cannot maintain a lifestyle, pay rent, utilities, buy food, cover medical expenses, own a car and enjoy life as a retail employee.

All holidays here in the United States are nothing more than a corporate facade to boost sales.

Our Christmas season, the 25th of December and slightly before and after, has nothing to do with the birth of Christ.

Isaac Newton argued that the date of Christmas was selected to correspond with the winter solstice, which in ancient times was marked on December 25.

In 1743, German Protestant Paul Ernst Jablonski argued Christmas was placed on December 25 to correspond with the Roman solar holiday Dies Natalis Solis Invicti and was therefore a "paganization" that debased the true church.

In 1889, Louis Duchesne suggested that the date of Christmas was calculated as nine months after the Annunciation (March 25), the traditional date of the Incarnation.

The New Testament does not give a date for the birth of Christ.

Around AD 200, Clement of Alexandria wrote that a group in Egypt celebrated the nativity on Pachon 25. This corresponds to May 20th. Tertullian (d. 220) does not mention Christmas as a major feast day in the Church of Roman Africa. However, in Chronographai, a reference work published in 221, Sextus Julius Africanus suggested that Jesus was conceived on the spring equinox, popularizing the idea that Christ was born on December 25. The equinox was March 25 on the Roman calendar, so this implied a birth in December. De Pascha Computus, a calendar of feasts produced in 243, gives March 28 as the date of the nativity. In 245, the theologian Origen of Alexandria stated that, "only sinners (like Pharaoh and Herod)" celebrated their birthdays. In 303, Christian writer Arnobius ridiculed the idea of celebrating the birthdays of gods, which suggests that Christmas was not yet a feast at this time.

Likewise, Thanksgiving is very much the same. It's a holiday based on myth.

The date and location of the first Thanksgiving celebration is a topic of modest contention. The traditional "first Thanksgiving" is the celebration that occurred at the site of Plymouth Plantation, in 1621. The Plymouth celebration occurred early in the history of what would become one of the original thirteen colonies that became the United States. The celebration became an important part of the American myth by the 1800s. This Thanksgiving, modeled after celebrations that were commonplace in contemporary Europe, is generally regarded as America's first. Elementary school teacher Robyn Gioia has argued that the earliest attested "thanksgiving" celebration in what is now the United States was on September 8, 1565 in what is now Saint Augustine, Florida. Today, Thanksgiving is celebrated on the second Monday of October in Canada and on the fourth Thursday of November in the United States. Thanksgiving dinner is held on this day, usually as a gathering of family members and friends.

Honestly, for me and my family, every day is a holiday worth celebrating.

So for those of you that sent me Thanksgiving wishes, it is much appreciated. Forgive me if I celebrate every single day of my life and don't regard any single day as more important than another. And forgive me if I refuse to participate in gift giving in any way other than perhaps to hand craft certain items through the entire year for no other reason than that I love my friends and family and choose to show it consistently throughout the year as opposed to following a corporate, or Fascist policy.

Peace