Merry Christmas.
I know as a radical, leftist, commie fascist man of Hebraic Seasonings-- a conglomeration of political terms that only makes sense to Red Hats -- I'm supposed to be at the front line, fighting the good fight in the War on Christmas. But the truth is, I'm ready to concede.
It's a cultural war as well as an imaginary one. Concocted by the same people who festoon every pine tree they can get hold of with lights and ornaments and flood the planetary zeitgeist with egg nog, ugly sweaters and Hallmark movies, and then go on Twitter (X) to complain how Christians are being persecuted.
Hold my slivovitz.
Political overtones notwithstanding, I love Christmas.
But probably not for the same reasons you do. It gives me ample excuse to bring back and speak about the Caganer. Not that I need an excuse, it's my blog and I can do what I want with it.
And if I want to ramble on about the Catalonian ritual of decorating all Nativity scenes with a little peasant man who comes to the manger, not with frankensence and myhrr, but the urgent need to pop a squat, I will do just that.
Those of you who continue to visit these pages, despite the panoply of typos, bad syntax and myriad Trump hit pieces, know that every year I write about El Caganer. This year I was fortunate enough to find a new photo of the Caganer doing his business, or "Conducting an Exit Interview with Mr. Brown", as it were.
Those of you who are unfamiliar will be shocked -- I know I was -- to discover that in many parts of Spain the locals put out nativity scenes, with all the usual cast of characters: Joseph, Mary, the baby Jesus, the Wise Men, and the mohel to to do the bris.
OK, maybe not the last one. But they do include a Caganer. Who is dutifully in the kneeling position preparing his birthday gift: brown playdoh.
Why? You may ask, thinking Rich is a heretic and surely going to the hot place for engaging in such fibbery.
But it's all true. And I have the receipts. That is, new photos of the Caganer in action. You can Google it. Or for a more colorful description you can look back on my 15 years of writing about this most unique and ink-worthy tradition.
Merry Christmas!
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