Friday, October 06, 2006

Enlist me for the war on Christmas, because I hate the holiday.

I could start by telling you how commercialized it has gotten, but you already know that. I could complain about how the focus has been put on the wrong things or how we should be kind to our fellow man the other 364 days a year, but you know that. I could tell you each year I spend the rest of the year playing financial catch up from the holiday, but you probably do that too.


If for no other reason, I hate Christmas because it is already stressing me out nearly 3 full months ahead of time. I’m stressed out financially just figuring out a way to buy the few gifts that will be expected of me. I’m also stressing about expectations that will be dashed. I’m stressing about the travel and anxiety that it will bring. Oh yes and the expense. I really think the entire point of the holiday is lost. I’m sure Jesus himself would advocate buying nothing for the holiday, except maybe some food and clothes for the least fortunate among us.

It is no surprise to me that the suicide rate sky rockets around the holidays. I find the turkey dinners and abundant gifts most people celebrate the holidays with to be a big nasty middle finger in my direction. My family doesn’t get together. We barely talk. Even if we did, our matriarch has never lived in one place long enough to call it home. You could say the point is getting together with the ones you love and I agree. The problem is the ones I love can not stand each other. So while I support your right to celebrate and enjoy every aspect of the holidays this year. I’d like to just treat it like any other day.

1 Comments:

Anonymous Anonymous said...

so...last christmas i was almost completely alone in seattle. i ended up watching a strange seventies russian sci fi film with a friend and eating a burrito at the only restaurant (La Cocina) open in Capitol Hill. It was surreal and depressing in it's own right, but I cannot say that visiting the family would have been less depressing. Every Christmas I can remember, I have ended up sobbing from a stress over load of some kind...fuck...when i was seven or eight a doll i got christmas eve no longer worked by christmas morning...and there has been drama every year since. Except for last year...the drama was that I was not with my family...that i was alone in a new city and eating a burrito in a Mexican restaurant that was a sensory overload in itself: overly decorated with Christmas lights, ornaments hanging from the ceiling mixed with Mexican restaurant decor. I share in the financial sentiment: the other day I announced, out of the blue, to a friend I was walking with that I wasn't going to buy ANY presents this year. which probably a lie, and that is sad. it already has me in it's grips...SHIT!

1:35 AM  

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