I am not anti-Christmas.
Really, I'm not.
If you honestly believe in Jesus, and think the son of God was actually born in the middle of the winter, right around the solstice, when all the cool pagans celebrated the re-birth of the sun in the sky, go ahead. Put up your manger scenes. Go to your Christmas pageants. Enjoy the midnight mass or sunrise mass, or whatever it is your church does to celebrate the festive occasion.
Say Merry Christmas to everyone that crosses your path this month. Scowl and mutter under your breath if they have the nerve to say Happy Holidays instead.
Probably terrorists.
What I do have a problem with is the rampant, competitive greed that passes for Christmas with most people. If I need to go to the store around the end of December I don't want to have to wade through mobs of angry people fighting gladiator-style over a discounted video game or coffee maker.
I don't remember anything like that mentioned in the Bible. Sure, the wise men gave a little bling to Mary's bundle of joy, but they didn't give each other anything. They didn't even give Mary anything, and she was the one who pushed the little rascal out her holy hoo-hah. Not even a shirt that says 'I went to Bethlehem and all I got was this lousy t-shirt.'
It seems to me if you want to give anybody a present it should either be your church, or someone the Bible actually says you should be helping out all year long anyway. You know, the homeless, the widows and orphans, prisoners, people stuck in hospitals and nursing homes during the holidays. Does anybody even think about them? Besides the Salvation Army members with their little red kettles and shiny brass bells? Sure, most stores have boxes where you can donate some random shit to the unfortunate, unwashed masses, but if you look in them most of it's cheap crappy toys people wouldn't give their own kids.
Even just giving your friends, family, and loved ones a little something to show you care would be one thing, but most people treat Christmas like an Olympic sport. Everything's a competition. Did you give little Joey more presents than his sister Penny? Did somebody only give you 3 presents? And you gave them 5? That selfish bastard. You gave your girlfriend the latest iPhone and she just gave you a combination flashlight-screwdriver-socket wrench-hammer? Sure, you can never have too many flashlights, but how can you see the nail when the light's shining all over the wall in back of you?
You can't even play Angry Birds on it.
Don't even get me started on the over-the-top displays in some people's yards. If it doesn't light up it inflates, and if it doesn't inflate it rotates or hovers or explodes or something. You can't just set out a tasteful little manger scene. You have to spell Ho-Ho-Ho out in strobe lights on the roof, flank your walkway with dancing candy canes, and have a giant animatronic Santa doing the Macarena right next to the snowman trapped in a big plastic bubble with a constant blizzard of what looks like shredded grocery bags.
Christmas is turning into the Las Vegas of holidays. Americans spend more on electricity for their Christmas displays than some countries spend on electricity all year long.
I miss the good old days, when Christmas decorations consisted of running a string of giant egg-sized light-bulbs. They didn't flash or change colors. You put them up, plugged them in, and they glowed. That was it. And they only came in 4 colors: red, blue, green, and yellow. That was it. Put them up, and you're done decorating.
Well, except for the tree, and decorating that just involved a few store-bought ornaments, a bunch of hideously, childishly home-made ornaments, including the traditional construction-paper chain garland, more of the giant Christmas lights, all covered with enough silver tinsel to make the whole thing a blurry, festive celebration.
And it was a real tree, too, with real branches and real needles. I don't know who invented artificial Christmas trees, or when it happened, but nobody I knew had one. We had real trees, like God intended. You had to keep the little container full of water, and pick the needles out of the shag carpeting where they hid like, well, like giant needles, waiting to stab unfortunate little bare feet.
The best part of the tree was the pile of presents under it, which you could spend all night rooting through, looking for yours, shaking them in hopes of guessing what they were. Jigsaw puzzles were the easiest to guess, right next to books, although even if you could tell it was a puzzle you still had no idea what the picture would be. A mountain sunset? A field full of tulips? Some Norman Rockwell painting? A teddy-bear tea party?
The worst part of the whole thing is the post-Christmas regrouping. Cleaning up after the big party. Taking down all the decorations. Trying to cram the tree back into the box that's just a little bit too small, held together by duct-tape and not much else. Returning presents that don't fit, or things you already had, or just don't want. Cologne that smells like ass? Thanks Grandma. Another set of fuzzy slippers from your kids. For the fifth year in a row. And what to do with the presents you don't want but can't return because you don't want to hurt someone's feelings.
And don't forget the hidden heroes of Christmas.
The trash men.
They'll spend all this week stuffing piles and piles of crumpled up wrapping paper and huge boxes full of smaller boxes full of even smaller boxes into their trash trucks. They were lucky to be off on Christmas, but that just puts them behind, so now not only do they have to pick up all this extra crap, they have to do their routes even faster because now they have to make up for the missed day.
You know they just want to go house to house setting people's piles of trash on fire.
I know I would.
Want to.
I would want to. As tempting as the thought is I would never do that.
Besides, it's raining,
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