God Cancels Christmas for U.S.

HEAVEN - In a stunning development, God canceled Christmas today.

Issuing a proclamation to the heads of the major U.S. churches and to the U.S. government, God suspended all Christmas activities in America for one year:

I have watched with growing impatience as Americans absorb themselves with trivial financial matters and fancy cars and big homes and long protracted wars and little blue pills that allow them to mate for hours. They abort pregnancies and use government policies to protect this terrible practice and elect leaders either with the fear of God but no brains and terrible execution or with no fear of God or birth certificate and an alarming sense of self-historical-importance. They develop online drawing games that prohibit children from typing my name into them so as to indoctrinate entire generations of non-believers, allow bloggers to use my name in vain (without a license, too), and eradicate all mention of the true meaning of the season, reducing 2,000 years of Christian celebration of joy to a Hallmark slogan, “Happy Holidays.”

I have consulted with SantaCorp, and since they have not received support from the U.S. Congress to continue operations, I have come up with what, I believe, is a fair and equitable solution for all.

I will NOT send a flood, although, by rights, I have quite enough reason to wash the entire planet clean once again. Instead, I hereby proclaim Christmas to be canceled in America for one year. All children scheduled to participate in Christmas Eve pageants and vigils and Christmas Day jubilees are hereby released from their duties. All churches of all denominations will be closed for one week. They will reopen a week from today and immediately institute only a program of reconciliation for all members, until further notice.

Non-believers, I will send emissaries to help wean you off government and marketing dependency. What you do with your thoughts after you clean yourselves up is of your own choosing.

If I see improvement by next December, I will reopen Christmas…and leave its future in your hands.

The proclamation said nothing of the status of Christmas in other countries.

“He didn’t need to,” said ABC religious expert Father Billy Flanagan. “It’s perfectly acceptable in other countries for Christmas to be nothing more than a time to worship the state. It’s always erroneously been America’s 'right' to celebrate Christmas, at least that’s what they say at Trinity Church. And I’m in agreement.”

President George W. Bush declined to comment for this article. A well-placed source in the Bush administration said the president was astonished when he heard the news. “How did it come to this,” he reportedly said.

“It’s not his fault,” the source said. “This has been coming for a long time. We all knew it would happen at some point. The season has been slipping for years. I guess this past fall’s events, the financial crash, the election, Barney Frank apparently getting into the Senate, for goodness sake…it must have all been just too much for God to keep his silence any longer.”

Anthony Romero, head of the American Civil Liberties Union, rejoiced at the news. “It’s about friggin’ time,” he said. “This is the happiest holiday season ever! Man…I don’t have to watch George Bailey on TV. I don’t have to see the bellringers outside Wal-Mart. I don’t have to fume at the wreaths at City Hall. I don’t have to hear the silly songs in Starbucks. I’m gonna throw a party all day long on December 25…you can come…and bring your girlfriends…and your boyfriends…we’re gonna have a happy, happy, heathen-mas.”