Shalampax Speaks

Exercising the executive reserve powers that he has while the Parliament of Shalampax is shut down for National Democracy Month, Prime Minister Manexposinghimself has declared today, January 20, to be Anson Jones Day in Shalampax.

According to Wikipedia, the unfailingly reliable font of truth on the Internet, Anson Jones, who was born on January 20, 1798, was a doctor, businessman, congressman, and the last president of the Republic of Texas. He was sometimes called the “Architect of Annexation.”

In 1844 Jones was elected President of what was then the Republic of Texas. In 1845 it was agreed that Texas would be annexed by the United States of America. A ceremony was held in 1846 to complete that annexation.

Once Texas became a state in the United States there was no longer any need for a President of Texas. I’m told that, to this day, many people regret that the annexation agreement did not include a clause making it illegal for a resident of Texas to ever become President of the United States.

Anson Jones had absolutely no connection to Shalampax and Shalampax has absolutely no connection to Anson Jones. This makes him a perfect person to honor with a national day because no one can complain about some petty little slight they perceive that he might have committed against Shalampax’s good name. As if we had a good name. LOL.

With Parliament shut down for National Democracy Month, parliamentarians are already off work. To compensate for declaring a holiday when they are already off, Manexposinghimself has signed an order for Parliament to remain closed for an additional day beyond the end of National Democracy month. Parliament will resume sitting (and, as its custom, napping) on February 2, rather than February 1 as previously announced.

Events Anson Jones, holiday

Many people, in many parts of the world celebrate Christmas today.

I’m a Paahlmist by choice because Paahlmism has more holidays than any other religion. I’m also familiar with all of the cults religions provided by Shalampax’s cult religion companies. However, I must admit, that I’m not familiar with Christianity, the religion that created Christmas.

In my role as spiritual reporter here at Shalampax Speaks, and as a benefit for readers who are, like me until recently, unfamiliar with the meaning and customs of Christmas, I did some research on the holiday. The following is what I found.

(Those of you who are Christians or are otherwise familiar with Christmas might want to skip today’s post as you are already very familiar with this. Besides, you’re probably busy celebrating Christmas right now and, as a result, you’re not reading this anyway.)

Christmas celebrates the birth of the illegitimate child of a woman named Mary. Mary swears that, before giving birth, she did not have sex with the God who claimed paternity of her son, nor, for that matter did she have sex with any man. At least, that was her story and she stuck with it. For some reason, her gullible, betrothed husband, Joseph, believed her story.

Marie and Joseph named the child Jesus Christ—or maybe someone else called him Jesus Christ; I don’t know. Whatever, I think it was exceptionally cruel to name him that. The words Jesus Christ are often used as swear words, so I can only imagine the terrible ribbing that Jesus must have endured from the other kids at school as a result of his name.

Jesus was born in a manger. I’m not sure why that is. I can only figure that Marie and Joseph had to find a place fast because Marie was going into labor. All of the hotels in the area were probably restricted and wouldn’t let them in. Did I mention that Marie and Joseph were Jewish? Then, as now, there was a lot of anti-Semitism.

As I said, Jesus Christ was allegedly the Son of God. However, many people dispute this. I would have thought that his paternity could have been settled quite quickly with a simple DNA test, but I guess that either Jesus or God refused. In any case, Christmas celebrates the birth of this alleged Godson.

Christmas Celebration Customs

The form of the celebration of Christmas is not universal, but there are a few practices that are common in a number of places in the world:

• Demonstrate Dominion Over God.  One common custom is to clearly demonstrate humans’ dominion over God by chopping down one of His creations, usually an evergreen tree. It is considered to be acceptable to purchase a tree that someone else has chopped down, thereby paying someone to assume your responsibility to show God who’s boss.

  The tree is then displayed prominently in the family’s home, under the Eyes of God so that He can’t fail to see that humans have the power to destroy His creations.

  Traditionally, the tree is decorated brightly and gaudily in case it might escape God’s notice if unadorned.

  In the ultimate humiliation of God, His creation is callously discarded after Christmas without any ceremony.

  Some people use an artificial tree to represent symbolically their dominion over God, without actually proving it by chopping down or buying a chopped-down real tree. This is considered to be an inferior experience.

• Execute a Vow of Poverty. Christmas celebrants are expected to take and execute a vow of poverty by maxing out their credit cards to buy lavish gifts for family and friends.

  Custom holds that gift-buyers, let’s call them the parties of the first part, must also buy gifts for some people they don’t like, let’s call them the parties of the second part. If the parties of the first part don’t do this, the parties of the first part run the risk of the parties of the second part buying gifts for the parties of the first part, leaving the parties of the first part with guilt feelings.

  These parties’ gifts are often exchanged at parties.
  

• Practice Deceit Skills. It is traditional in many parts of the world for parents to use Christmas to practice their deceit skills. At this time of the year, parents try to convince their children that their gifts are brought by a jolly, fat man who comes climbing down the chimney of every Christian home everywhere in the world, all on the same night.

  This fat man is named “Santa Clause”. To escape justice for his widespread trespassing crimes, he also operates under the aliases of Saint Nicholas, Saint Nick, Kris Kringle, and Father Christmas.

  When practicing their lying, parents get bonus points if they can convince their children that Santa makes his rounds flying through the air on a sleigh pulled buy a bunch of flying reindeer. Leading these alleged reindeer is supposedly one that must drink too much because it has a shiny red nose.

  Parents who are able to convince their children that all of this is true have proven that they are expert liars. They can then confidently use this skill throughout the year. Either that or they are incompetent liars but their children are exceptionally gullible and/or dimwitted. The parents can likewise take advantage of this throughout the year.

Sprituality Christmas, customs, holiday, Santa Claus, traditions

Today is Day Day in Shalampax, a day when we honor no specific national event or person, but rather the very concept of “Day” holidays.

Many countries have Days to celebrate the anniversary of their independence and/or formation. The United States calls its Day “Independence Day.” I’m told that Canada calls its Day “Canada Day” and Australia calls its Day “Australia Day.” Those Canucks and Aussies are so very creative, aren’t they?

Depending on where you live, you might also have Days to commemorate specific individuals, such as “Martin Luther King Day” to celebrate, well, er, Martin Luther King, who was an African-American king or maybe he was just a prince who would have become king had he not been assassinated by some wacko—I’m not sure which; “Saint Patrick’s Day” to honor, a saint named Patrick who invented the color green; or “Victoria Day” to celebrate the long-deceased Queen Victoria. I’m not certain, but I think Queen Victoria founded Victoria’s Secret.

Or you might have a “Day” holiday to celebrate a type of person, such as “President’s Day,” “Mother’s Day,” or “Father’s Day.” We’re considering establishing a “Useless Twit’s Day” here in Shalampax to honor the masses and our politicians. (Those of you who live outside of Shalampax don’t know how lucky you are to have honest, hard-working, intelligent politicians. Then again, ours sleep most of the time, which prevents them from doing too much damage.)

Of course, there are also religious holidays, such as Christmas Day and Groundhog Day.

Then there are the “Day” holidays that celebrate human activities such as, depending on what country you are in, “Labor Day,” “Labour Day,” “Thanksgiving Day,” “Boxing Day” (I’ve never figured out why anyone would celebrate that), “Memorial Day,” and “Remembrance Day.” By the way, I was wondering, are Alzheimer’s patients exempt from Memorial Day and Remembrance Day?

And at least one day of the year, “New Year’s Day,” gets its own Day just for being that day of the year. Why a single, arbitrarily selected temporal demarcation should get its own Day when the 364 other days—or 365 on leap years—don’t is beyond me, but so be it.

But, as far as I know, Shalampax is the only country to have a national holiday to commemorate the very concept of “Day” holidays. It surprising that we are the only place to do this because, what is more cherished by one and all than holidays, particularly holidays when you’re not expected to cook a turkey, give gifts, gather with relatives you hate or feel guilty about anything?

Happy Day Day!

Events day, holiday

Today is the fifty-seventh anniversary of the first time we celebrated this day in Shalampax. We’ve been celebrating it ever since we started using calendars.

We have not given this day of the year any special name. We don’t celebrate anything or anyone in particular, nor do we stage any distinctive festivities today. And we aren’t expected to eat any special foods or wear any specific color of clothes on this day each year.

Today is not an official workplace holiday. Then again, Shalampaxians rarely need an official reason to call in absent.

Happy day to you all!

Events holiday

Today is National Goof Off And Don’t Give A Damn Day (National GOADGAD Day) in Shalampax. Goofing off and not giving a damn is pretty much what most of us here do throughout most days, which is why we felt it was especially important to commemorate our national pastime with a holiday.

On National GOADGAD Day Shalampaxians all, well, not to put too fine a point on it, goof off and don’t give a damn about doing so. True, as I said, that’s what we do almost every day, but today we do it as a patriotic duty.

National GOADGAD Day is not to be confused with National Gonads Day. The latter was a day when the men here honored their gonads. It was cancelled because it was considered to discriminate against women. Actually, what happened was that the women went around kicking men in the gonads on that day because the women were pissed off about only the men being able to take the day off.

It turns out that it was all a mistake that resulted from neither men nor women here realizing that the word gonad means testis or ovary. We all thought it meant only balls. Has anyone here at Shalampax Speaks ever mentioned that we’re all frigging idiots?

I’m not sure how we found out the truth, but National Gonads Day was cancelled before we learned that the holiday wasn’t discriminatory. That’s a pity because, as long as I was able to avoid the ball-kicking women, I really liked National Gonads Day.

Some of the women here were very disappointed both that the holiday was cancelled and that we learned the real meaning of the word gonads because they enjoyed kicking men in the balls. Now they need to find another excuse for doing so.

National GOADGAD Day is an official holiday only here in Shalampax, but you can still take it upon yourself to celebrate it wherever you live.

If you’re reading this at work, when your boss stops by your desk tell her or him that you’re wasting your time surfing worthless Web sites, and you will continue to do so for the rest of the day, in celebration of National GOADGAD Day. What’s the worst that can happen?

Happy National GOADGAD Day! Goof off. It’s the least—and the most—you can do to celebrate this special day.

Events goof off, holiday

Shalampaxians will be observing National Physical Fitness Day today. Of course, Shalampaxians being Shalampaxians, we’ll be observing it from the comfort of our couches, with our feet firmly planted on ottomans and beers always in hand. (Well, that is to say the beer cans will be in our hands. The beers will be in the cans until a few seconds after the cans are opened, after which the beers will be down our throats, into our bellies and then out through our urinary tracts. But you get the picture.)

Observance consists mostly of watching sports on television.

Out of respect for the National Physical Fitness Day holiday, many of us will, just for today, switch to light beers and the low-fat, low-sodium versions of our favorite potato chips and pork rinds. We’ll be back to the sodium-, calorie-, and fat-laden versions tomorrow. A holiday is one thing, but you can’t expect us to make such sacrifices the whole year-round.

Happy National Fitness Day! Even if you’re not a Shalampaxian, you too can join in the festivities by relaxing and watching someone else get some exercise. Sounds like fun, doesn’t it?

Events fitness, holiday, physical fitness