Holiday Greetings

It's that time of the year again. And it can't be over soon enough. Seriously, Christmas is my most hated part of the year. I know, I know, it's hard to believe that I could hate anything, right? I just can't stand this damn holiday. I can hear you already, "Such a scrooge you are Deni." But no no, you got that wrong. I have no employees to make work on Christmas, and even if I did, I'm all about days off from work. So I suppose the silver lining in the holiday is not working, I do love long weekends. But I really can't think of much else to like about this silly pagan ritual hijacked by the Christians. So as my holiday blog, here are some random reasons why I just want to lock myself in a room this time of the year:

First, there is the actual holiday itself. As a person who rejected all religion a long time ago, why is it that people still expect that I should celebrate this day? If I had actually picked a non-Christian religion for myself, say Judaism or Islam, no one would be buying me Christmas presents or expecting any from me. But since I don't believe in any of the world's cults, I'm still considered a Christmas celebrator by default. It's like how when I was absent on section-picking day in gym class and I got put in basketball because I'm tall, even if I hate basketball. "Well, he's white and American and doesn't wear a funny hat or long beard, so he celebrates Christmas."

Shopping. Holy shit, I hate shopping any time of the year. But in December it is just insane. Every place is crowded as hell, even record stores that I like to go into and browse are too insane for me to deal with during Christmas shopping season. Granted, this year my wife and I made our lives a lot easier by doing a huge chunk of our present buying on line. The internet is certainly going to make future Christmases a lot less stressful by keeping me out of the malls and out of the wrapping business.

Rockin' Around The Christmas Tree. Fuck! Who could possibly like this song? I don't understand how people like Christmas music at all, but this song is an especially painful piece of shit. Why is it that perfectly sane people with reasonably good taste lose their minds at Christmas time? Case in point: I was down in New York visiting two of my favorite people a weekend before the holiday. Now these are people that have generally great taste in music. You will find Neko Case, Bjork, They Might Be Giants, Southern Culture On The Skids, and tons of other good indie-rock and cool tunes in their CD collection. When I walked into their place, what were they listening to? Digital cable's Music Choice Christmas music channel!?!?!?! I mean, why would anyone do that on purpose? I thought I accidentally walked into Old Navy or Safeway. This is the stuff that makes me get the hell out of stores faster than usual and they've chosen it as their cleaning-up music. People lose their minds and think shitty things are good just because of some silly holiday. I will never understand it.

Bill O'Reilly, Jerry Falwell, Pat Robertson and like-minded others love Christmas. So there has to be something wrong with it.

Green bean casserole.

I can fight with my family any time of the year. Do we really need a whole day set aside for it?

Christians raise their children to believe that lying is a sin, yet spend the first 7 or so years of the child's life telling them there's a Santa Claus. Talk about sending mixed messages.

The pressure is just too much for me to deal with. I can, on any random day, pick up some flowers on the way home from work for my wife and she is just so happy. And I know she will be. Doing something because I thought about doing something nice for her. A random act of love that I know will be completely appreciated. For the holiday there is just so much stress. Will she like it? Did I spend enough? Will she leave me if I don't beat last year's gift? Of course, my wife always loves everything I get her, so its not her fault I think that way. It Christmas' fault. And my mother's.

The Christmas In Washington TV special.

And something is wrong with any holiday that only Linus seems to get the true meaning of.


Season's Greetings everyone!