I detest 'Jingle Bells,' 'White Christmas,' 'Rudolph the Red

Host: The city was awash in light — a galaxy of neon and glitter strung between towers of glass. Everywhere you looked, Christmas displays screamed for attention: reindeer outlined in bulbs, colossal trees dressed in gold, synthetic snow dusting storefronts that reeked faintly of cinnamon and capitalism.

It was mid-November, and yet, the world had already surrendered to December’s fever dream. The streets pulsed with carols blaring from speakers, shoppers juggling bags, and a thousand tiny Santas grinning from every window like little ghosts of joy manufactured for profit.

Jack and Jeeny stood in the middle of it — two figures adrift in the noise. Jack, hands in his coat pockets, was watching the chaos with the thin, bitter smile of a man allergic to cheer. Jeeny held a cup of hot chocolate, its steam curling into the cold air, her eyes soft but alert — as though she saw through the glitter into something human beneath.

Jeeny: (smiling faintly) “Richard Dawkins once said, ‘I detest “Jingle Bells,” “White Christmas,” “Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer,” and the obscene spending bonanza that nowadays seems to occupy not just December, but November and much of October, too.’”

Jack: (snorting) “A man after my own heart. Finally, someone brave enough to declare war on jingles.”

Jeeny: “You’d agree with him?”

Jack: “Completely. Look at this circus. They’ve turned warmth into marketing, joy into credit card debt, and love into discount sales. It’s grotesque.”

Jeeny: “You make it sound like happiness is a scam.”

Jack: “It is when it’s sold by the pound.”

Host: The crowd surged around them, carrying with it laughter, noise, the rustle of shopping bags. A street performer strummed a guitar nearby, singing — of course — ‘Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer’ with mechanical cheer. Jack winced as if every note scraped his nerves raw.

Jeeny: “You’re not wrong about the commercialization. But don’t you think you’re missing something?”

Jack: “Such as?”

Jeeny: “The heart behind it. Even in this madness — there’s something tender in the attempt. Parents buying gifts for kids, friends gathering in the cold. People trying, clumsily maybe, to feel connected.”

Jack: “Connected by consumption. The entire season’s just a Pavlovian exercise. Bells ring — people spend. It’s not love; it’s programming.”

Jeeny: (quietly) “Maybe it’s both.”

Host: The wind picked up, scattering confetti and paper receipts down the street. The lights reflected in puddles — gold and crimson bleeding together like melted emotion.

Jeeny: “Dawkins hated the songs because they trivialized the sacred, right? He saw the season as hypocrisy wrapped in sentimentality.”

Jack: “Exactly. He’s a man who believes in reason. He sees the ritual stripped of meaning — like dressing an empty box and calling it a gift.”

Jeeny: “But maybe meaning isn’t in the ritual. Maybe it’s in the longing that keeps people doing it anyway.”

Jack: “Longing for what?”

Jeeny: “For innocence. For a moment when the world feels kind, even if it’s artificial.”

Host: Jack turned toward her, his grey eyes glinting with skepticism softened by curiosity. The carols blared on — syrupy, repetitive, unending.

Jack: “So you’re defending the season that makes adults cry in parking lots?”

Jeeny: “I’m defending the ache behind it. People aren’t stupid, Jack — they know the Santa myth, the commercialization, the manipulation. But they still buy the tree, still hang the lights, still sing the songs — not because they believe, but because they want to.”

Jack: “Want to believe in what?”

Jeeny: “That love can be rehearsed until it feels real again.”

Host: Her words cut through the noise like quiet snow — soft but absolute. A group of children passed by, their laughter bright as bells, the kind that no cynic could quite erase. Jack’s expression flickered — a shadow of something unguarded, almost nostalgic.

Jack: “You ever think we cling to holidays because we’ve forgotten how to feel joy without permission?”

Jeeny: “Maybe. Or maybe we need reminders — even loud, tacky ones — that joy still exists.”

Jack: “You sound dangerously optimistic.”

Jeeny: “No. Just realistic. The world’s bleak enough. If plastic Santas and bad music make someone smile, let them.”

Host: The lights above them blinked in patterns — red, white, green — pulsing like the heartbeat of a city trying too hard to feel alive. A large speaker somewhere began to play ‘White Christmas’, Bing Crosby’s voice floating through the cold like a ghost of nostalgia.

Jack: “You know, Dawkins would call all this regression. Modern paganism with worse music.”

Jeeny: (laughing) “Maybe. But even atheists need beauty, Jack. Maybe the songs he hates are just secular prayers — awkward, repetitive, but full of yearning.”

Jack: “You think people pray to consumerism now?”

Jeeny: “No. They pray through it — because it’s what they’ve been given. And somehow, even that can become holy.”

Host: The crowd thinned as the evening deepened. The music softened; the wind carried faint laughter from a nearby skating rink. The city, still loud with light, began to slow just enough for the quieter truths to breathe.

Jack: “So you think Dawkins was too harsh?”

Jeeny: “I think he saw the sickness but missed the soul. You can despise the symptoms and still honor the need.”

Jack: “And what need is that?”

Jeeny: “To believe, even temporarily, that we can love without fear.”

Host: Jack’s shoulders relaxed, a rare sign of peace breaking through his armor. He looked around — at the faces, the laughter, the absurd beauty of it all.

Jack: “You ever notice how every light looks lonelier when you stare too long?”

Jeeny: “Yes. But when you step back, they form constellations.”

Host: The city hummed, the lights glittered, the air smelled of roasted chestnuts and electric hope.

Jeeny: “You see, Dawkins detested the performance. But even performance has power. The songs, the lights, the chaos — they’re imperfect vessels for something real. And that’s humanity’s greatest art form — to create meaning from noise.”

Jack: (smiling) “So you’re saying even ‘Jingle Bells’ is sacred?”

Jeeny: “Only if you listen past the tune.”

Host: A single flake of snow drifted down — hesitant, uncertain — and then another, and another, until the air shimmered with quiet white. For a moment, the city’s frenzy slowed, softened, bowed.

Jack looked up, then back at Jeeny. His voice, when it came, was low and almost tender.

Jack: “You always find grace in the places I curse.”

Jeeny: “Because that’s where grace hides.”

Host: The snow continued to fall, settling on their hair, their shoulders, their words. Around them, the lights glowed not garish, but gentle — a fractured kind of holiness.

And in that fragile stillness, Richard Dawkins’s defiance seemed to echo through the air, not as scorn, but as a challenge — a dare to see deeper:

That artifice can still mirror truth,
that even commercial joy contains rebellion,
and that to detest the noise
is sometimes just another way of aching for silence
that feels like wonder again.

Host: The crowds moved on.
The snow fell harder.
And amid all the noise, Jack and Jeeny stood —
two quiet figures in the carnival of contradiction,
where cynicism met tenderness,
and truth, like snow,
fell softly between them.