Sunday, December 12, 2010

My Hatred Of Christmas (And Why I Am Right)

Every year around this time, I find myself assaulted and assailed by the relentless good cheer of people who apparently are hell bent on making me break my resolve in re: boiling people in their own pudding.

For every person who is shocked by the notion that anyone, anywhere would so despise their Beloved Season Of Good Cheer, I wish to make this public, if ignored, comment: Fuck off. Thank you.

Leave us, now, to determine the causes of this "irrational" mindset, shall we? Or are you too timid, too cowardly to read on?

I care not. This is MY blog. Not yours. Neener, neener, boo boo.

For what it is worth: like all "irrational" hatreds, mine begins with ugly childhood memories. Every year, like clockwork, my father's family would gather on Christmas Eve. Good food, good cheer, all that: what's the problem?

Getting home at about 2AM on the 25th. Being an only child, being drug out of bed by parents and grandparents will harsh, barked (sometimes hangover induced) commands: Be Happy. (Or what? You'll beat me until I cheer up?) The moment was caught one time on 8mm film... a wee child staggering, sleepwalking into a slow wakeful state, and BAM! That horrific glare of a hand held sun explodes, and you can actually SEE the retinas burning. Cut to: staggering child (undoubtedly blind) moving from object to object, wondering what the hell is going on...

Bitch Number One: Enforced frivolity should be allowed, legally, to be responded to a single brutal, physical response. My fist, your nose. Why? Think: how would you respond to a happy clown showing up at the funeral of a loved one? See? A happy clown! Laugh, damn you! LAUGH!

A little over the top? Maybe. BUT: once a year, I am advised by some pinheads that want me (and I assume you) to believe they live by the credo Do Unto Others As You Want Them To Do Unto You.... do they WANT me to demand an emotional response? If that is what they are doing, and they are, then I guess I am going to have a team of clowns on retainer, and send them a group of names: Watch for next funeral....

Everyone likes to whine about the materialism in Christmas, and so, too shall I. No apologies, just the truth. Again: Only child. So many read that and say Ah Ha! Spoiled rotten! Got everything he ever asked for...

Wrong.

My parents started a tradition that my wife, and family, have made every attempt to follow. Demand (not request, demand, which is really fucking annoying coming from your kids, okay?) a list of material goods.... that will then be completely ignored. Completely, utterly. (As a child, this was devastating... even my friends that came from huge and impoverished families would get at least ONE thing from their list...)

Bitch Number Two: (and yes, this is directly related, Things I Have Learned The Hard Way)... there are more in the world who get nothing than those who get anything. Allegedly, we are celebrating the birth of Our Lord And Savior. (I am all about that!) Somehow, we have begun to ignore the homeless, the poor, the orphans and widows... say what? Is that (wait for it: Drum Roll) What Jesus Would Do?

Worst part of Bitch Number Two: Every damned year I get suckered into it. I fall right into the line to the showers: gimme. Gimme. Gimme. THAT is embarrassing. That shopping zombie look, the open drooling mouth... gimme. Gimme. Gimme.

I hate it when I do that.

As time went on, and I became less enchanted with This Idiot Season, I recall most distinctly hearing a (ready?) Pastor, a Man O' Gawd, going on at length about how the most pagan of rituals was accepted into the Christian faith, and thus, made Holy. He then went on about how one of the symbols of Christmas, the Tannenbaum, the Christmas Tree, was one of the most pagan traditions ever subsumed into the faith.

Every year, the world goes 'round the sun. Every year, the planet reaches a point where it appears that the sun is going farther and farther away. The darkness of the night becomes longer, the light of day less: the world was ending. Bring in a tree, that one that is ever green, and it will be a reminder of when the world was not ending. We will festoon it with candles, and chase dark away by bringing our own light.

Bitch Number Three: Christmas, in the way it is celebrated, and even when it is celebrated, has absolutely, positively nothing whatsoever to do with the faith. Nothing.

The Nazis... oops, sorry, their spiritual predecessors the Romans, kept rather accurate records. They marked their calendars with important dates and events, like we do now, and those dates can be easily if not flawlessly determined. According to the Scripture, Mary and Joseph had to return to their hometown for a census. This was recorded, and the date can be approximated within a week or less. Christmas did not happen in the dead of winter, folks.

If it did, "certain shepherds in fields where they lay" would have frozen to death, not too mention their flocks would have died.

Christmas, then, as it exists currently is nothing more than a materialistic pagan orgy of spending.

Oh, and by the way: while the birth of Our Lord And Savior is of vital importance, it was his blood, shed for us all, that we are saved. Not his birth. His crucifixion. Sorry. Hate to be the one to tell you the truth, but... tough.

2 comments:

  1. You don't really hate ..gasp Christmas.. do you?Trish

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  2. "Christmas, then, as it exists currently is nothing more than a materialistic pagan orgy of spending."

    I would love to postpone it for one year. Every time someone says "I could buy thus and such for Uncle So and so," they would take the money and set it aside. Then, on Christmas itself, donate the cash to food banks or homeless shelters or their local Hospice. (Hospice is the breeding ground of saints, at least the people I was blessed to have encountered.)

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