I hate Christmas. I find it totally ironic that the time of year that is supposed to signify the birth of the Savior of Mankind puts so many of Mankind into a deep depression, myself included. All I want for Christmas is to curl up into the fetal position under a down comforter and hibernate until May.
I don't know when I started hating Christmas, but it's been a long time. Without this time of year, I think my life would be much better. So, to punctuate this holiday season, I thought I would make a little (or a big) Christmas list of Why I Hate Christmas:
1. (These are all related so I decided to include them together) Traffic, reckless driving, and harried and rude shoppers, which begins 2 days prior to Thanksgiving and continues to progressively accelerate with each passing day of December until it peaks on Christmas day. I don't have a lot of faith in human charity anyway, and this time of year seems to remove what little faith I have. We've eliminated Christmas shopping for the adults in our family, but still I would rather stay homebound for the entire month of December because even though I'm not shopping for Christmas presents, everybody else is, and consequently, hordes of merry Christmas shoppers everywhere you go.
2. Next comes the Christmas cards, with each Christmas card I receive screaming at me my inadequacies because I know I'll add this to my To Do list, but as with most things on my To Do list, it will never get done. Yet another pound of guilt to add to my load. My Christmas cards will never get sent out because I'll have all these grandiose ideas about putting together a Christmas slideshow CD, and after spending countless hours that I do not have to spend, I will tally up just how many of these buggers I have to burn off, label, address and stamp, and my finished project will gather dust in my archive files on my computer. Actually, I think that's worth two pounds of guilt: One for not sending ANY Christmas cards out and two for having wasted the hours on a Christmas greeting I will never mail.
3. Then comes the money crunch because although we don't buy Christmas presents for the adults, somehow this has crept into giving "little things" to each family because they started giving "little things," and then, of course, parents don't count as adults because they still give an embarrassing amount of money every year, once at Thanksgiving and again at Christmas, to the "children," so with this big chunk of change comes the guilt-ridden obligation of giving them something fractionally equivalent. Of course, since they have everything, I inevitably end up buying them something that will sit on a shelf somewhere, like the MP3 player I bought my dad last year, and he STILL would like that portable CD player. And my mom, well, I still owe her a Mother's Day gift from last year.
So with this nice seasonal monetary grant from my parents we should be doing fine, and I should have plenty to spend; however, because it is such a generous amount, there is that impulse to squirrel it away because typically at this time of year my husband's work drops out, and we're left holding our breath for the first 4 months of the New Year wondering whether we're going to make the mortgage payment. So, consequently, I'm working my arse off doing what seems like an inordinate amount of overtime to make sure we have a "pad," but by the time my paycheck arrives, makes me wonder why I bothered.
4. The Christmas spirit. What the hell is that? I know what our impression of a Christmas spirit is, and consequently, what our expectations are, and there lies the problem. Frankly, watching "It's A Wonderful Life" once a year just doesn't seem to cancel out the thousands of holiday TV commercials beaming in a steady stream into your living room night after night, starting days before Thanksgiving. I know this is terribly cliché, but Christmas IS commercialism, and consequently, Christmas is all about THINGS. Things you get, things you give. The things you want and hope to get. The things you give or have to give or should give. If you want to give, why not give all year round? Why MUST we give this month? Give toys for the toy drive, give cans for the hungry, give blankets for the homeless, give presents to your family, give cards to our friends, give food for the Christmas party, give a Christmas party. Give, give, GIVE! (The whole month reminds of a never-ending PBS telethon.) I know this is the inverse of what you typically hear. Usually, people bemoan the getting, but I find that only truly applies, I think, to children. When you become an adult, it then is all about the giving, and not in a good way. I know typically giving is a good thing, but not through emotional blackmail, which is what I feel it comes down to this time of year. With all this giving, I still do not feel the Christmas Spirit. On the contrary, I feel guilt because I haven't given enough or I haven't given what I feel I SHOULD give.
Also, it is CHRISTmas. I was talking about this aspect with my husband. I told him, here I am helping out with the Christmas festivities at Vaughn's preschool, stuffing stockings, playing Christmas music, buying gifts, etc., and yet, I don't FEEL like it's Christmas. I don't FEEL in the Christmas spirit. Then it hit me. I guess it's a little difficult to feel the CHRISTmas spirit when you take the religion out of it. I mean, really. Then what is it all about? Christmas is a micro-example of having a faithless life and yet still trying to manufacture some kind of meaning and reason for existence. This all then forces me to reflect on the lack of spirituality in my own life, which further depresses me.
5. Christmas is for children, and as a result, Christmas is about me as a parent making this Christmas special, and in my efforts to make this Christmas special, my child is miserable because I'm so stressed out about needing to make this Christmas special.
I'm sure there are countless other reasons for my hating Christmas. Frankly, they are too numerous to enumerate, and I already feel like I've crossed that fine line into grinchy ramblings.
Once again, when all the wrapping is strewn across the floor and that feeling of relief settles in that Christmas has finally passed (and also that deep sense of loss and regret that we missed out on something better), I will make my yearly resolution to make NEXT year's Christmas better.
Oh, and lest I be remiss in my Yuletide obligations: Merry Christmas!
PS: I wonder if Jews go through this during Hanukkah? If not, I think that it just might be worth converting.
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