Sunday, December 17, 2006
Happy Holidays....
....subtitle: My Holiday Rant.
I'm not a fan of the holiday season. I like New Year's. Because its my anniversary. Because its a new start. And because I can be sloppy drunk if I wanna. But most of December is pretty sucky for me.
Yeah, I fake it fairly well. I come up with ridiculously complicated baking projects to give as gifts to my neighbors. I make stuff, including my holiday cards. I put white lights on my front bushes. But deep down inside I dread the holiday season. And ironically for the very stuff that I do.
A good deal of it is due to leftover bitterness from my many years in retail. You can't imagine how ugly and evil the general public really is unless you have worked in retail during the holidays. I guess the rest of my Scrooginess comes from the fact that Christmas (and Hannukah too, I guess) have turned into trumped up secular holidays that are really about consumerism and not much else. Actually even that sentiment is hard to separate from my history in retail.
There is all this hooplah about spreading holiday cheer and people getting infected with the holiday spirit, etc. Why can't people have good cheer and spirit all year long? Why can't people feel good about giving to charities and to each other and all that the rest of the year?
And oh, God... the consumerism. Christmas is supposed to be about the birth of Christ. What exactly does that have to do with buying diamonds, electronics or a new Range Rover??? I think I would feel much less offended if big box retailers and the rest of the capitalist world would just invent a big bogus holiday and call it as such without attaching themselves to a religious event. Afterall, isn't that what Halloween, Valentine's Day and Mother's Day are all about???
Of course it goes without saying that, while I believe in God and all that, I don't consider myself a Christian so its almost hypocritical for me to "celebrate Christmas" (insert actual finger quotes and sarcastic tone). I guess I comfort myself in celebrating togetherness with my family and reaching out to friends who I haven't done a good job of keeping in touch with throughout the year.
And finally my crusty black-hearted cynicism can't help but mention the evidence that Christ wasn't even born in December and that the holiday is acutally reinvented history.
OK. Rant over.
I'm not a fan of the holiday season. I like New Year's. Because its my anniversary. Because its a new start. And because I can be sloppy drunk if I wanna. But most of December is pretty sucky for me.
Yeah, I fake it fairly well. I come up with ridiculously complicated baking projects to give as gifts to my neighbors. I make stuff, including my holiday cards. I put white lights on my front bushes. But deep down inside I dread the holiday season. And ironically for the very stuff that I do.
A good deal of it is due to leftover bitterness from my many years in retail. You can't imagine how ugly and evil the general public really is unless you have worked in retail during the holidays. I guess the rest of my Scrooginess comes from the fact that Christmas (and Hannukah too, I guess) have turned into trumped up secular holidays that are really about consumerism and not much else. Actually even that sentiment is hard to separate from my history in retail.
There is all this hooplah about spreading holiday cheer and people getting infected with the holiday spirit, etc. Why can't people have good cheer and spirit all year long? Why can't people feel good about giving to charities and to each other and all that the rest of the year?
And oh, God... the consumerism. Christmas is supposed to be about the birth of Christ. What exactly does that have to do with buying diamonds, electronics or a new Range Rover??? I think I would feel much less offended if big box retailers and the rest of the capitalist world would just invent a big bogus holiday and call it as such without attaching themselves to a religious event. Afterall, isn't that what Halloween, Valentine's Day and Mother's Day are all about???
Of course it goes without saying that, while I believe in God and all that, I don't consider myself a Christian so its almost hypocritical for me to "celebrate Christmas" (insert actual finger quotes and sarcastic tone). I guess I comfort myself in celebrating togetherness with my family and reaching out to friends who I haven't done a good job of keeping in touch with throughout the year.
And finally my crusty black-hearted cynicism can't help but mention the evidence that Christ wasn't even born in December and that the holiday is acutally reinvented history.
OK. Rant over.
// posted by Stephanie Cake @ 12/17/2006 08:56:00 PM 
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