Rampant, disgusting materialistic consumerism,
The same obnoxious songs repeated so much I want to tear my ears off,
crowds,
dark, and cold.
And for some reason grown people in the 21st century attempting to indoctrinate their kids with a myth of a fat guy with a beard simultaneously delivering gifts to everyone in the world.
As if it wasn't bad enough that it starts getting dark ridiculously early and for some idiotic reason we switch back to standard time compounding the problem, then this "holiday season" comes up.
Barf.
My repulsion at Christmas aka Consumermas goes back just about as far as I can remember. As pretty much atheists, and Jews to boot, my family didn't do much to mark the occasion. And before you dismiss the subsequent rantings as those of someone who felt 'left out', on the contrary I quickly realized what a fortunate and rare situation I was in.
I remember as early as elementary school all the kids complaining about how they had to do all of their "Christmas shopping." From my minimal exposure to religious holidays up to that point, the phrasing of the name of a holiday followed by "shopping" seemed positively oxymoronic, and continues to seem so to this day.
There was no avoiding the malls around the holidays, and what I saw was people acting like fools. And what I heard - was those songs. The same ones over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over. Jingle bells holly jolly silver bells chestnuts jingle bells rock little drummer etc..
The first year I really became aware of these songs, I figured that they must come out with new ones every year, because there is no way they would repeat the same ones ad nauseam again next year! Boy was I wrong.
When I was in high school I worked as a cashier at a giant Wal-Mart clone called Meijer. Long about July, an middle-aged woman started working with us. At some point she volunteered to me that she was usually a housewife, but this year she had to make a 'good Christmas' for her kids. If it takes 6 moths of full time work to go from a mediocre to a good Christmas, that just might be a sign this holiday is too expensive and too focused on materialism.
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Since I grew up in one of the most conservative and ignorant cities in the country, in my public schools we sang Christmas carols for what seemed like months every year, and once in a while there would be a token acknowledgement that some freaks out there celebrate something different, like "Kwanzaa" or "Hanoooka". In spite of my schools being about 50% black, nobody celebrated the former, and just a tiny number of us celebrated the later. I would occasionally be asked in front of the class what this Hanooka was all about.
One time the teacher then asked if I don't celebrate Christmas, do I also not celebrate Thanksgiving? That was approximately third grade.
When I was in college one of my really smart friends was able to articulate something for me. I still remember it - he said
"It must make you so angry that yours are the supposedly materialistic people and yet it is everyone else that is standing in line all night just to beat each other up in a quest to get the last sale priced Tickle-Me Elmo"
Damn straight!
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When I started having girlfriends I realized the true extent of the cultural depravity that is Christmas/Consumermas. I would suck it up and go out and buy something, wrap it up all nice with a bow, and present it to my sweetie, only to be met with a crestfallen "that's it??" Then she would hand me the video game system or whatever uncalled for expensive thing she got, followed by the "stocking stuffers" of more junk that I might or might not need.
This sort of excessive gift giving has nothing to do with showing love or affection or whatever. It is a gross sickness of excessive materialism that has infected our society, turning love and parenting into a commercial transaction.
It has infected us so deeply that people now consider a new car, and a Lexus at that, as an appropriate scale of holiday gift
"December to Remember" That hits on another depraved theme of the holidays, which is that you are supposed to supply your loved ones with a "memorable" Christmas. It is not enough to just do it, it has to be so amazing that they will always remember it. Which means that there is terrible Christmas inflation, because every year has to be more outlandish and full of holiday amazingness than the last.
What ever happened to relaxing and enjoying life?
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I learned that Chistmas/Consumermas even has the power to turn lefty/alternative girls into people who might as well belong on Real Housewives. One year I had the gall to also put "Happy Hanukkah" on a card. Bad move. My girl then opened up what her parents had sent from across the country - there was a new digital camera, a Casio keyboard, some clothes, and some other things.
One later girlfriend did not object to calling it Hanukkah, and gave me porn. In retrospect, she may have been a keeper.
In recent years, it seems that the madness of Consumermas may have subsided eeeever so slightly. For years I rememer that Consumermas was ramped up ever year, with the ads starting earlier and earlier. For a while there it creeped into just after Halloween, but it seems to have retreated to after Thanksgiving, which means we basically have one full month of disgusting madness.
On the other hand, the phenomenon known as "Black Friday" has certainly gotten more ridiculous. It used to be that stores opened at the regular time and were busy, then they opened early and were mobbed. Now they just open the evening before - that would be Thanksgiving Day.
Here's a typical scene from this year's "Black Friday" festivities. I believe the treasure in question is a waffle iron:
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Now that Black Friday shopping is actually starting on Thanksgiving day itself, the whole disgusting hypocrisy of Chistmas/Consumermas is laid bare. For the defense that is always put up by those that enjoy or have nostalgia for this time of year is that it is redeemed because in spite of the excesses, it is about 'family'.
And yet how family-oriented can it really be if people are leaving or forgoing Thanksgiving itself in order to shop? How family-oriented is making people at Wal-Mart, Best Buy, and 1000 other stores work overnight on Thanksgiving? The answer: it isn't.