Leave it to the religious people to take a fairly simple idea (the winter solstice) and turn it into a fucking shitfest. I love the idea of Christmas as much as anyone. It’s ingrained in the common culture of my life – every December of my whole life I have admired a bejeweled tree, placed presents underneath it, carefully considered the best gifts for everyone on my list, and sent out season’s greeting to friends and family. The IDEA is lovely, but the perversion of the idea is what kills me. We can’t just admire a pretty tree anymore; no, it got turned into a marketing assault, forced familial bonding, and a reason to put things on credit which we could otherwise never afford. Where is religion in all this again? Oh right, the nativity scenes available at Walmart. Baby Jesus lights up - how cute.
The winter break is better celebrated the way the druids did it back in the day: dress up a tree and sing some songs with the people you love. And (conveniently) there are four other solstices throughout the year, so the happiness gets spread around.
If a person who isn’t from America visited our country in December, they’d be like, “what the fuck is going on here?” Who is this fat red-suited man invading homes under the guise that it’s Jesus’ birthday? If it’s JC’s birthday, are the presents for him? Why do these little American pricks think they should be showered with gifts just because it’s the 25th of December? Does the greenery have some symbolic meaning tying back to the pagan woodlands? Isn’t a bit environmentally dangerous to mass-produce and sell millions of rolls of colorful paper which will not be recycled? Is it part of the secret plan that outdoor lights never work for more than one year? Since when are icicles multi-colored?
Don’t get me wrong; I love the whole ho-ho-ho, festive-cocktail-party, cookie-making, anticipatory, holiday merrymaking, but I think maybe society has jumped off the deep end a bit and made what should be a festive celebration of life more of a guilt-inducing DUTY. I don’t like that part. I don’t want to see Christmas decorations in Target the day after Halloween. Stop trying to market my life to me, Target, Inc.! Dammit!
Another bone of contention for me is that I take gift-giving quite seriously. I start picking up gifts in October (primarily because I can’t afford to buy them all in December) because I put THOUGHT into what I give to people. While other (unnamed) people buy everything two days before Christmas. No thought, no picking just the right thing. It’s like, “well, Anne Marie has teeth, so I’ll buy her this toothbrush.” Fuckers. That’s not fair. By extension, I’m trying to impart the importance of GIVING to my kids, but (excepting the oldest one), they don’t get it. At all. It kind of makes me want to grab one of those little plastic baby Jesuses and punt it across the frozen tundra of the park. (Just kidding, Catholic people! I already know you think I’m going to hell. Too bad there’s no such thing. Joke’s on you!)
So besides getting all kinds of drunk and belligerent this holiday season, how will I celebrate the season without the gaudy religious iconography being rammed down my throat at every store? I don’t know. I wish I had some clever pithy Christmas philosophy to present, but maybe staying drunk wasn’t such a bad idea. That will help me ignore all the seasonal Christians coming out of the woodwork. As Holden Caulfield so aptly put it, “Jesus would’ve puked.” I don’t need to freeze my ass off in the middle of a bunch of other people oohing and aahing about the pretty lights in the trees. I can drive by a week later from the warmth of my car and appreciate it just as much (or more, because I’m warm). I sort of want to handcraft a huge menorah for my front yard, just to stir up some religious zealotry, but I have no carpentry skills.
Just one more thing, while we’re here together: the yearly Christmas letter. Getting a mass-produced letter from my family members is probably the dumbest fucking thing I’ve ever heard of. If I needed to know about your various life events, I already know. Chances are, I don’t care anyway. I got a card yesterday that said “Happy Everything.” What the fuck does that mean? Either make up your mind about what you’re celebrating, or keep the pictures of your children on your refrigerator where they belong. Send the money you spent on that professional photographer to Africa where it will make more of an impact than it does sitting at the bottom of my garbage can.
Two years ago I sent out a letter with a pack of hyberbolic lies about my children and I – modeling gigs, sports contracts, Rhodes Scholar. The next year I just stole a bunch of Bill Watterson’s quotes about materialism and holidays, put them in my own voice, and sent it out. (Turns out the family didn’t find it very funny.) This year I’m boycotting the whole bloody mess. I’d love to do my part to keep the U.S. Post Office in business, but no dice. I’m going to beam the good will towards others (who deserve it) out through my brain instead. Cheaper. Less work. Less fakely (is that a word?) cheerful.
Celebrate the druids. Hug a tree. Pass it on.
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