The True History of Gift-Giving on Christmas

With all of the hullaballoo about whether people should celebrate Christmas or not, I decided to research the true origins of gift-giving on Christmas. I hope you find the tale as fascinating as I have!

Once upon a time there was a newlywed couple who had to take a trip to file their paperwork for the IRS. Thanks to new government regulations, in order to complete this paperwork (in triplicate), the young family had to travel to the husband's home town. Cries of discrimination were rampant (why couldn't it be the wife's hometown?) but the government didn't care.

Just like everyone else, Mary and Joseph had put this off until the last minute, and so end-of year travel for IRS registrations was insane. Lines were so long late filers were given numbers and told to come back the next day.

It was too far to travel back home, and all the local hotels were double-booked. They considered sleeping in their small car but Mary's back could not handle the discomfort. Eventually the pair found a place to rest at the local homeless shelter.

Mary was quite pregnant, so Joseph gave her the bed while he slept propped up against a wall nearby. All of the travel and line-standing ended up being too much for poor Mary, and she went into unscheduled labor. Joseph took her to the local hospital, but they refused to take claims from their particular HMO, and the Urgent Treatment Center nearby was not licensed to handle childbirth, so a little baby boy was delivered in the homeless shelter aided by an illegal Latino named Jesus, who had experience helping goats give birth in his homeland. They named their baby after him in gratitude.

Meanwhile...

On a high hill miles away there lived three entrepreneurs. Sales were down because of the recession, so they were brainstorming different ways to generate more income when they stepped outside and took a smoke break. Off in the distance was the most beautiful neon sign they had ever seen, advertising the homeless shelter. One of the entrepreneurs suggested that they take some gifts to the shelter and honor some homeless kid there in hopes the promotion would encourage others to buy their stuff and give to others. For lack of a better idea the three entrepreneurs gathered their best stuff in their limousines and braved the traffic to the neon sign.

Mary, Joseph and little Jesus were the talk of the homeless shelter when the entrepreneurs arrived and thus were chosen to receive the gifts. Mary was given a golden whistle on a chain, with instructions to use it whenever she needed Joseph to do something. Joseph was given some marijuana to calm his nerves while waiting on Mary hand and foot, and little Jesus was given a big-screen television and a wii. The television was so fancy that when it was turned off Mary could also use it for a mirror, but Jesus liked watching tele-tubbies so much it wasn't turned off very often!

When asked the reason for giving the gifts to the young family, the entrepreneurs discussed the benefits of buying stuff to give away "just because" - but the most memorable part of the interview was when one of the men decided to stick his finger in baby Jesus' face. The baby decided to take a bite, leading to the loud exclamation of "Jeesus CHRIST!" The press had a field day with that quote, and ran several articles about how Jesus Christ had his birthday celebrated by the rich men giving him expensive gifts.

Not wanting to be thought poor, others quickly jumped on the bandwagon, buying gifts for every Jesus in the country, eventually deciding that instead of giving gifts to strangers named Jesus they preferred to give stuff to people they actually knew.

...And now you know the rest of the story, as the young family went wii wii wii all the way home!