Santa can’t pay for his mortgage this year, let alone buy you a Wii. December 8, 2008
Posted by Jennie Roth in Bricks.Tags: Christmas Sucks
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The following video roughly speaks to my feelings regarding the present holiday season with all it’s perceived joys and sentimental experiences.
A coworker recently called me a Grinch after I responded by laughing when she asked me if I was getting into the holiday spirit.
Christmas is great for little kids, before they find out that Santa isn’t real or that if you rearrange the letters in Santa, you can spell satan. Oops, sorry Michelle, I hope you don’t read blogs to Alexis.
I still have a ceramic jack-o-lantern in my living room and I couldn’t be happier about it. I have also tried to encourage Rob to use Halloween lights for his Christmas tree. Ah yes, I really did love the Nightmare Before Christmas.
I could give you the stereotypical Grinchy reason like “Christmas is for shopping and the shopping God is everything” but really, I don’t think that’s it.
People waiting in lines in stores to buy some plastic thing with other plastic things in plastic bags from other stores overflowing from their person can become irritated easily and are rather annoying, so are mall Christmas trains that take kids around an oval shaped track, surrounded by fake snow and oversized candy canes for 15 laps.
Christmas songs annoy the crap out of me. Take for instance this ditty I heard while in the car with my mom this evening:
What a stupid song. Srsly. So he sees this girl he used to date in the grocery store on Christmas eve and they go drink a six pack in her car and realize the reason they don’t talk anymore in the first place and he gets out of the car and is depressed and oh well life goes on and it’s a Christmas song. OMG.
I can’t really pinpoint why I have a slight distaste for Christmas, it’s not like I had a horrible childhood or anything crazy in my Christmas past. Maybe it coincides with my seasonal affective disorder and why I need to go tanning once a week in the winter. IDK.
Whatever it is doesn’t really matter. I’ll be sending out Christmas cards with little Bricks and Boxes MOO cards tucked inside. If you’re lucky, you’ll get one.
I thought the exact same thing to myself tonight when I realised that half of one of my christmas tree light strings was dead. I felt compelled to go out and spend $6 on a new string, just so this plant I’ve stuck in my living room looks good and balanced and appropriate for the holiday season.
What it comes down to is interpretation and subjectivity of why we do the things we do. There are plenty of people that simply don’t get it. They get sucked into the Christmas void for the same reasons you’ve mentioned here, which is all sorts of pathetic and disgusting.
I choose to engage myself in silly rituals as a way of commemorating what was, and what I hope to be. I’m not Christian, but I celebrate Christmas, which really makes me a hypocrite, but I’m not celebrating for the sake of the birth of Christ, I’m celebrating for everything else the season calls for. Snowmen, sledding, hot chocolate, sitting around watching A Christmas Story, an opportunity for me to give things to those I care for (consider it a social doorway to accepted generosity), and deciding its ok to put army men on the tree.
I get a kick from seeing people enjoy themselves, and it just so happens that the holiday season can be a breeding ground for that sort of thing. Associatively, I crave all the silly things that come with this time of year, and now that I’m old enough to control all these things, I embrace it as much as I can.
Everything we do to interact as humans is intrinsically silly, but our ability to look past that and appreciate it, thats what gets you an official Red Ryder carbine-action 200-shot range model air rifle on December 25th.
I’m not a fan of Christmas because it’s become high drama central for my family. It’s always about my brother’s side of the fam and what they want to do and their schedule and catering to their needs. We always have to dress up and pretend we’re out of some farking Norman Rockwell painting. Everything has to be “quaint”.
I don’t like shopping. I can’t stand Christmas music and the season of joy has become one of “get the funk out of my way! my kid deserves that toy!”. I’m a scrooge and if it wasn’t for Lushie’s family I’d probably be a miserable prick. With them it’s about family, food and celebration. Oh and I always end up with something Penguins :)
Disclaimer: I am pre-coffee crabby.
First: That is Dan Fogelberg. The only thing he is any good at is sucking. :)
Second: I kind of feel right on with you this year, but what made me feel better was adopting a family for Christmas. That got me right in the spirit. Of course, I’ve not exactly started any of the “fun” for the rest of the family and/or people I know. But! The adopted family is totally covered.
I usually love Christmas shopping, Starbucks in hand, tra la la. This year feels different and I don’t know why. It started with the guy getting trampled at Walmart and the terrible reaction of the shoppers in the store. I think that put a damper on my desire for holiday fa la las.
Don’t for one second feel bad about not liking Christmas. I hate it.
I’ve hated Christmas for a long time, actually. I hate shopping. I hate crowds. I hate shopping in crowds. I hate feeling guilty every time I walk past a guy clanging a bell next to a pot and I don’t give him anything. I hate snot nosed brats screaming bloody murder in every store. I hate the fake “MERRY CHRISTMAS!!” attitude that most people adopt this time of year. I loathe christmas music on repeat on every station the radio has. I hate the pressure of buying christmas gifts so that they don’t look like I bargain shopped for them.
Aside from that, my Grandmother died around christmas, and I’ve always connected it to that, I suppose. So yeah. November 1-January 3 is usually the time I hole up and disappear so as to not ruin every one else’s christmas fun.
Bah. Humbug.
The thing I dislike most about Christmas is the completely manufactured “War on Christmas” that people of my grandparent’s generation can’t get enough of.
Other than that, I really enjoy finding/making people the perfect gift, which tends to be some sort of craft item or something from Goodwill. One time I found this amazing plaque that has illustrated directions for preparing a glazed ham. It’s still hanging in my brother’s kitchen. Another time I found a small statuette of Richard Nixon that kind of looked like a bobble head but was larger and made out of some sort of plaster.
Now, even a Christmas grinch would love a gift like that!
Thank you all for your comiseration. Good to know I’m not alone and that others are not afraid to voice their opinions too.
@Marginal Designs: I love your gift theory. I went to the I Made it! Market this weekend and was very excited by all the handmade goodies. I didn’t buy anything because they would have been for me, not those I should be buying gifts for.
[...] already ranted enough times and in enough places about my aversion to all things Christmasy and “Seasonal” that I won’t do it [...]
Um, yeah. I hate pretty much all the things you just listed. I’m all about the decorations cause I lurve me some bright, shiny lights, but other than that? Meh. We buy for little for Alexis for Christmas (she has one toy under the tree this year), I can’t stand the music, and I really can’t handle when people start running around in Christmas sweaters with little bells on them.
I do enjoy buying people gifts, but that’s because I think of it as a time of year when I should show them that I’m grateful that they are in my life. I bake cookies for most of the adults (many of whom are single males in our family), and I purchase or make very carefully selected items for everyone else. It’s all about the happy, and I refuse to allow in any of the stress. If it’s not fun, then I just don’t do it. Period.
@Burgh Baby- Good attitude. I’ve chosen to skip a few traditional parties/festivities that I usually do every year. Good bye fakey alumni parties, Hartwood Acres, The Nutcracker Ballet and several others.
However, there is one Christmas party I do look forward to and it involves wine, ugly sweaters and dog named Rufus.
My first Christmas didn’t happen until I was 22. It was with my girlfriend…she bought me a Ghetto Boys tape. I guess that doesn’t really add anything to the conversation. But still…The Ghetto Boys!
Thank you Jennie for providing me with an idea for my blog for the night. :-)
http://rebelliousflaw.blogspot.com/2008/12/defense-of-christmas.html
I don’t love Christmas but I don’t hate it either. I think I’ll continue to float in the vague void in between hatred and love until there’s little kids again my immediate family.