Christmas without Christ

It was late evening on Decemeber 24 when two satellite operators deep within the NORAD command in Wyoming had encountered a strange anomaly at the Lagrange 4 point between Earth and the moon. There was a sudden, and short, spike of gamma radiation that pefectly matched an x-ray at the same time and intensity. For some hours the two men checked and double checked the measurements and finally had been about to reposition another satellite to run checks of L4 from a new position.

That's when a transmission came through. It was a microwave transmission to one of the orbital satellites. The satellite relayed its transmission back to Earth where the two two men were able to collect what appeared to be a raw binary data packet. Once running the machine code through a translator a simple message was displayed: WHAT ARE THESE HOLIDAYS?

And that is when the fighting started.

"I don't give a single damn about policy, I am not going to try to explain what very well may be the most important holiday of the western world without discussing the religious implications behind it," said Jameson.

"Oh come off of it," Harper countered. "Policy states it right here: 'culture and society may be discussed just without going into any of the relgious aspects.' I'm not going to argue this with you. If they want to know, we should tell them. Just be particular."

"How are we supposed to explain any of these holidays, especially Christmas, without actually getting into any of the religious traditions?" Jameson said frustratedly.

"I don't know. Tell them about shopping and family," Harper suggested.

"Oh great, on the eve of the Christmas we should tell the aliens about the bastardized retail holiday it's become. That sounds fantastic," Jameson soured.

Harper sighed heavily, "You know they don't come around here often."

"I'm not doing it. I mean seriously, if we can't have an honest conversation about the significance of these holidays with each other how are we supposed to tell them?" Jameson huffed as he grabbed the bottle of whiskey he kept poorly hidden away in the filing cabinet. The whiskey was, fittingly, the Jameson Irish Whiskey brand.

Harper sighed again, as he reached over and deleted the transmission logs. He also sent the signal for the satellite to do the same - occasionaly civilians used them after all, they didn't need some intrepid stargazer learning about the extra-terrestrials yet.

As Jameson partially filled one of the two whiskey tumblers with the amber liquid he said sarcastically, "Who knows? Maybe next time they'll come around on Valentine's Day or Chinese New Year. Then we won't have to worry about it."

Jameson slid the glass over to Harper who gently picked it up. Just as the progress bar finished on his console to confirm the deletions, Harper replied, "Maybe so. Maybe they'll show up at Easter. Best to let people think NORAD is only tracking satellites and Santa Claus."

"Merry Christmas," Jameson said and drank.