christmas

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 25^th, 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