A week before Christmas and I rather chew glass soaked in rubbing alcohol than hear one more Christmas song. This close to zero hour and shoppers have become predatory and feral. Going into any grocery store at this point requires a spotter with a scope, air strikes on call, and body armor. I’m thinking of taking a shopping cart and going full on Mad Max and putting spinning razors on the front with a flame thrower.
It’s beginning to look a lot like Christmas.
I’ve always hated Christmas. Even as a little kid I knew there was no Santa Claus. I also knew Christmas was a time America, as a culture, reaffirmed the idea that poor people were somehow to blame for their lot in life.
Santa brings toys to good little girls and boys.
Poor children don’t get as much, or anything at Christmas.
Ergo, poor children are bad.
American Christmas is a competition to see how much your kids mean to you, and most people aren’t even aware this is happening. Yet ask kids what they do the day after Christmas and they’ll tell you they’re comparing what they got versus what other kids hauled in. Worse, the overabundance of gifts makes for overstimulation, which leads to a let down when the buzz dies. By New Year’s, the people buying presents are ready to go on a bender. The people who got the presents feel oddly hollow.
In the meantime, every scrap of wrapping paper, all the plastic packaging, all the Christmas trees that haven’t already burned a house down, and all the food no one ate will be thrown away. The trashcans lining the road will be filled to overflowing. All of those trashcans all across America are a symbol of waste, not wealth. They are a symbol of bribery, not love. They are a sign of a civilization based on consumption, not care.
Retail stores can count on between 20 to 25% of their yearly sales to come from Christmas. With all the waste, I wonder what would happen if we simply stopped buying Christmas presents? Would we discover we do not need so many shopping malls and giant stores? Would we have more room in our homes? Would we spend time with our families instead of buying them off once a year?
What if after Thanksgiving, we put a 20% sales tax on gifts just to calm people the f*ck down and stop the madness?
Sunday, I’ll build a fire to coax the sun into returning to warm the Earth again. That’s all the celebrating I will do. I might have a friend or two over, and we’ll sit and stare at the coals, and talk about the things we remember.
On the 25th, we will feel a bit sad that Christmas isn’t what it once was, but it never was, and in some odd way, we know it. It will be a week or maybe longer before the trash is picked up, and in the end, the mountain of trash will be the most permanent reminded of Christmas 2025.
Take Care,
Mike
I’m not feeling all Christmas-y this year. Normally the “season” makes me nostalgic for the Christmases of my youth. You know, all the fondest memories of each Christmas rolled into one, such that nothing today can compare.
But this has been one booger of a year. Lost my sister in March, my father in November, and my mother’s dementia has reduced her to the independence level of a pre-schooler.
So this year I’m just not feeling “it.” Still, I am hopeful that next year will be less of the same.
Here’s hoping for that magic to return somehow.
Bev, lost my little sister in June. Nothing is good or right yet.
Hang in there.
I am sorry for your loss. You and your family and her friends have my condolences.
I too despise the way people act during the holiday season. I have worked in a grocery store and I have worked in a large chain arts and crafts store. Both are horrendous at this time of year. The employees get treated badly for no reason. I get people are tired and frustrated, but those cashier and clerks did not tell you to wait for the last possible minute to buy your things, it is not their fault your list items are sold out. It’s called planning.
Working in the retail setting the Christmas music is blared form the speakers at top volume to set the mood for the shoppers, it kills the mood for the Employees. I cannot listen to Christmas music, there are some songs that are more hideous than others.
The only good thing about this time of year is time with family. I do enjoy that. if it weren’t for that, I might just hide in my house for the duration.
I can’t stand the phony hugs and good wishes from people who couldn’t care less if you lived or died the rest of the year. I can’t abide the people who make charitable donations at the Holiday season. I realize the charitable organizations need it. If you were really that generous, you’d give all year. All the look at me-ness burns my ass.
I’m with you Mike.
Chick, I work with an organization that does a lot of charity work and we get few outsiders asking to help us.
Christmas rolls around and folk want a photo op.
I live in Greece where the most important holiday is Easter so things are more ‘normal’ here this time if year.
Alena, Greece has been more civilized than America for a few thousand years.
If you want nontraditional Christmas music, try Twisted Sister’s album, “Twisted Christmas,” Weird Al Yankovic’s “Christmas at Ground Zero” and “The Night Santa Went Crazy,” and The Arrogant Worms album, “Christmas Turkey.”
My thoughts of Christmas are very different. I did not grow up rich at all but was always happy with what I got–not matter how little. And I did not compare what I got with my friends nor got jealous of their take.
As an adult, I would usually spend Christmas with my Mom and step-Dad, even after getting married. Then we started to visit our friends that had a house in Mexico to have a warmer Christmas (temperature-wise),
Now my Mom and step-Dad are dead and the friends sold their house and one of them died, so our Christmases are low-key.
We do celebrate Thanksgiving and Christmas with my wife’s family over the Thanksgiving weekend, though.