I used to enjoy Christmas. As a child, I looked forward to what was a fun time of year. But now that I am 19, and it only seems to get worse, I have nothing to look forward to.
Does anyone remember what Christmas is even about? You know, that whole birth of Christ thing? I think it’s all a bunch of bullshit anyway, but come on. How did a little baby being born in a heap of hay in some drafty manger devolve into suicidal driving manuevers in the hopes of getting a halfway decent parking spot from which you can actually see the mall so that you may waste too much money and put yourself into credit card debt to buy stupid gifts for people who don’t really love you and whom if you truly loved you would buy gifts for more than once a year?
I suggest buying people you care about gifts randomly, throughout the year. I do - not on purpose, but because I’ll see an Elvis bookmark that makes me think of my best friend or a piggy ornament that my mom would like. Christmas isn’t the only time of year you have to appreciate someone. And why send 300 christmas cards to people you don’t even see but for once a year? Why all that pressure to remember everyone? If you don’t talk to someone all fucking year, maybe they don’t need to know about little Jimmy’s abcessed tooth in the mas chirstmas e-mail. Maybe you don’t need to watse $3 on a Unicef card so that you can wish your great aunt thelma’s manicurist’s dog groomer’s son a happy goddamn holiday and help the starving children in Ethiopa at the same time. Just thinking out louad here.
I really don’t get it. I buy my mom, my stepdad, a family member (we pick names) and my two best friends presents. Everyone else gets a card. This doesn’t make me a bad person. It makes me a person with money after Christmas is over. If I had any say at all, I wouldn’t even participate in this x-mas bullshit since I don’t particularly care when Jesus was born.
And a hearty hello to those who just have to be fucking different in some respect by celebrating Christmas in June.
Christmas music - you know, I used to like this too. But I hear it all the time starting in Novemeber. You know, like a month before the stupid fucking holiday we are joylessly celebrating. I have warm fuzzy memories of singing “Winter Wonderland” around the fireplace, but those have been eclipsed by the horror of Cher and Mariah fucking Carey hooting about why it’s not like Christmas at all. Why now, if Christmas means bothersome tramps desecrating music for the interest of rip roaring capitalism, then it must be Christmas, by golly gee!
That whole must-have toy shit - go to hell. If you are lame enough to wait in line for seven hours to pay a ridiculously inflated price for a piece of talking fur, then you have some serious fucking problems. Wahh! Lil Bobby has to have a Tickle Me Elmo for Christmas? Tell him that life sucks, time to get used to it, and buy him an Encyclopedia set.
Maybe you should wait until the actual month Christmas is in (you know, December) before putting up lights. Just an idea. And maybe you could try something a little more than the white-icicles. Last time I checked, icicles don’t give off light, and they aren’t electric. You aren’t fooling anyone, especially the five thousand other mindless folks who have the same decorations up.
5.Why do I have to do anything for New Years? Why does everyone start asking me in October what I am doing for New Years? I don’t even know when I’m taking my next shower, do you think I have planned in advance for a holiday two months away? And do I have to waste money on a new outfit, new jewelry, get my hair done and then spend $50 on a tickert to some lame party just so I can watch the ball drop with a bunch of people I don’t know? Could I just sit at home with some friends and then go to bed midly drunk on wine? Why does this make me lame? Maybe I don’t want to celebrate. Maybe I don’t buy into the idea that New Year’s is the be all and end all of holiday celebrations.
I hate the cold weather too. Buurrr! It’s so cold, let me put on my cute parka with matching golves and scarf and lookatme with my rosy cheeks! Kiss my ass. I’m sitting here in jeans and a sweater, two pair of socks and a long sleeve t-shirt and I’m still cold because my parents don’t want to watse money on heat at night (night being after 5 pm). Seems it makes more sense to freeze to death at night, so you will begin to rot and thus spread the odor of your decaying carcass throughout the house starting at 8 am, when the precious heat finally kicks in. I have a quilt, four thick blankets and a sheet on my bed, I sleep in flannel pajama pants and a long sleeve t shirt and thick socks and I still wake up cold. And there’s nothing like waking up in subzero Anarctica and stripping naked, hopping in the shower, getting blasted with cold water, finally warming up and then getting back into the cold while frnatically drying myself so that my skin might reach room temperature. I risk carbon-monoxide poisoning every morning by sitting in my heating car, hoping that my fingers might return to their natural skin color.
If you are shopping this Christmas season, in a mall or any varient thereof, maybe you should stop bitching about how much it sucks to shop at a mall during the holiday. Until you stay home and order online, you are only contributing to the problem. And hey! Your fucking child in a stroller should not be used as a device to mow down people bocking your path to the K-mart, ok? You’re giving the child whiplash. And I know the line for the elevator is long, but pushing the stroller down the esculator is a bad idea. You know, shopping with kids is generally a bad idea. I’m trying to tell a customer about thread count but your child is screaming too loud because he wants his binkie and you were too self-absorbed to consider for a moment that maybe his idea of a fun time does not involve being whipped past strangers at breakneck speed and being thrown down a moving straicase. But hey, as long as you waste $500 bucks on toys that will line the Dumpster next Christmas season.
I hate snow warnings. It might snow tomorrow? Jesus people that does not mean you have to run to the store, plowing down innocent bystanders in your attempt to buy all the toilet paper in the store. What the fuck do you need milk for? Drink water! It’s free and comes from the tap! Oh yeah, eggs, gotta be able to make an omelet on Sunday when the snow is three inches deep and melted by noon. Great call on that one. It’s not like the grocery store is going to disappear under an avalanche. Especially here in Baltimore. Even in the big bad Blizzard of '96 when I missed a week of tenth grade, we could still drive to the store to buy toilet paper.
I refuse to give in to all this materialistic whining and bitching that goes on during the season. All these people who think presents are the end all be all of their existence. Well, I’ll play no part in it, I tell you! Fortunately, I don’t have to. For you see, I’m Jewish and we as a religion and culture have learned not be so greedy.
[sub]I’m not sure if there are enough rollyeyes in the universe to convey my feeling right now[/sub]
Good rant by the way. Especially the part of you getting naked. Oh sure, sure, you were talking about how cold it is, how terrible it must be, blah blah blah. All I heard was Sara and naked. That was the main point of your rant right?
I like the fact that it’s in winter, because winter needs more fun stuff.
I don’t really care if the malls are crowded or not. They’re crowded most of the time anyway. I park a long way from the doors; it’s easier to get in and out that way and a little walk’s good for you.
I like having a big present-giving-festival. It’s a blast, wrapping paper all over the place, kids excited, a big pile of stuff to take home. I love buying presents and giving them away. And I hand out presents the rest of the year, too. What better use could there be of my spending money?
I like Christmas decorations. Done right, they can look beautiful. They really warm the house up, especially at night. I like icicle lights, too. They’re pretty.
I don’t bother with Christmas cards and I have never in my life heard anyone complain.
I like Christmas music. I like hearing it in November, too. Beats Britney Spears.
And if the people you know think you’re lame for spending New Year’s at home with a few friends, you need new friends. I do that every year and everyone thinks it’s a great idea.
Guess I’m full of Christmas cheer. I love it. I get time off work and I can spend more time with Mrs. Rickjay and buy her cool presents. And I get to see my family. It’s terrific.
I hate this time of year too. It gets cold and all the girlies start wearing entirely too much clothing. On the other hand, there is much boozing at Christmas parties, and this helps reverse the trend.
Thank you Nacho4Sara (or Nacho, or Sara, whatever you’d prefer), for so eloquently echoing my feelings of this “joyous” season.
BAH, HUMBUG. May Santas sleigh suffer a malfunction of one or more of his stinking deer and decompress at high altitude!
Brother in law; Remember earlier this year when I spent two days helping you put in a new water heater and then you couldn’t spare a half hour to help me lower my pump when my well got low?
Daughter; Remember how many times I “loaned” you money to pay your car insurance and then you couldn’t take me to the grocery store when my car was on the fritz because you just had too much to do?
etc, etc …
Newsflash: Thanks for the flannel shirt and the carton of cigarettes, I’m glad they gave you the “feel good” opportunity to show me how much you love me. Sorry you only get that good feeling once a year.
God, will I be glad when this commercially mandated season of good will is finally over and I can get back to just being marginally depressed.
I had to comment on this…one of my biggest pet peeves. I live on the coast of South Carolina. Last year, we had six inches of snow that fell in the night. It had melted by noon the next day. It was the first snow fall in ten years. Last Sunday, the weather guys were calling for a possibility of flurries. They then took the cameras to the grocery store to show people lining up to buy bread and milk!!! People were panicked. What a bunch of complete loser idiots.
Ahhh… I love this time of year, when the crisp smell of angst wafts through the air like the soft bite of gingerbread baking…
Dear Sara, Dear Sara, you have no complaint.
You are what you are and you ain’t what you ain’t.
So listen up, Buster, and listen up good:
Quit wishing for bad luck and knocking on wood.
Signed,
Dear Spritle
(sorry John)
FTR, I love Christmas! Correction. I love what Christmas should be. I don’t like the commercialization, etc.
I loved your rant. As I read the first part, I just pictured Linus at the pageant interrupting and asking for the spotlight. “Does anybody know what Christmas is really about?” Ah, I love “Charlie Brown Christmas”. Is it still brought to us by York Peppermint Patties? Does this make it commercial? I’d hate to have to start despising it.
Just a nitpick here to expand on your overall theme:
I rather think you can truly love someone and never give them any gifts ever. The answer to solving the debacle we call Chritmans is not to say “you ought to be giving gifts more often, more spontaniously”, but to attack the very idea that swapping crap is an expression of love. I mean, it can be a way to show affection, and I am not argueing with that, but it is certainly neither sufficient nor necessary for establishing someone’s love for another person.
A friend of mine is trying to get us in the habit of adopting an angel collectively every year instead of exchanging gifts, because giving an adult crap they don’t need instead of helping a child who faces serious challenges is a piss poor way to say “I love you”. I find I agree with her.
We cut out Xmas presents in my family when I was 15 or 16. It has made the holidays infinitly more plesant. The problem is that someone has to make the first step, and announce that they are not giving that year. What happens is that people still give you gifts, and then you feel guilty. You have to move past that guilt and stand firm. Remember that if someone gives you something there is no obligation inherent in that gift, and it is better to be an example of how putting the money somewhere where it will actually change the quality of life for someone is a better thing to do.
If you think Christmas is a drag for you, try it as someone from another religion.
How would you react if everyone were sending you Budda’s Birthday Cards, dozens of people?
And pictures of the jolly Iatolah in every shop.
And stranger you meet at the bus stop saying “Praise Allah!” and being deeply offended if you don’t answer the same way?
Sorry, but your problems with Christmas pale to mine.
My detestation of Christmas is as inexplicable as it is intractable. It is a holiday for fools and children. What is Christmas really about? Keeping the merchants in business. Most retail stores would perish without the Christmas buying madness. It is not about the birth of Christ. No body knows when the Christ was really born. No body even knows if the Christ was really a Christ. Is it about family? No, No, and Hell No. I fart in the face of my family and in-laws. Family gatherings with the all oozing false sentimentality are less fun than squirting diarrhea The people who truly enjoy family gatherings, like my mother-in-law, trend to be overly sentimental and needy Alzheimer prone, borderline psycho-gits. A lot of people, like my wife, tolerate family gatherings so as not to offend the psycho-gits, but don’t really put their hearts into it. Getting rid of Christmas celebrations are the #1 trough 10 reasons to contemplate divorce.
The decorations and lights wound the sensibilities of the eyes like the sight of an enormous anus, gaping and dripping with pus and blood. What mind damaged nincompoop decided that flashing multicolored lights were some how pretty? This year decorations went up in some retail stores in October. * Mein Gott! The Horror! The Horror! *
And the trees. Every year, this is bothering me more and more. Tress being cut down so idiots can decorate them in their homes. Wouldn’t a nice forest full of trees, natural and undecorated, be better than all these silly trees dying in peoples homes?
And Santa Claus. What an inane and jejune practice. Why encourage children to believe in something that doesn’t exist? It is not cute or charming. It is an example of gullibility.
I won’t even begin to rant about the truly evil sounds of Christmas music, I’d burst.
End Christmas, end it now. If you really want to make it special, have in once a decade instead of once a year. Hell, better yet make it once a lifetime. It can coincide with Halley’s comet. The Next Christmas should be in 2062.
I give everyone (all 5 people on my list) the same thing: I donate $30 - $50 to my favorite charity (Bea Gaddy’s shelter, for those who live in Baltimore). I give them a card I made by hand - very persoanlized - from home-recycled paper and tell them that I donated $x to that shelter, then put a little personal note inside.
You clearly haven’t heard her collection of Christmas songs. Every monday, wednesday and friday at work we hear the Britney/Vonda Shepard mix. The other days it’s Celine/Barbra Streisand.
All these fucking idiot customers at work are seriously making me rethink my stance on the second amendment.
Me: (pointing to screaming child imprisoned in stroller) Is he tired of shopping?
Customer: Well, we’ve been out since 9 am!
It’s 5 pm! What are you thinking? That’s torture!
Sheesh.
Hey guys, I thought about adding in the detail that my nipples are hard from the cold for half an hour every time I enter my house, but thought it might be TMI.
I like Christmas, but I don’t like the commercialization, and by the time December 25 rolls around, I’m sick of hearing all the stupid carols.
But I do like the season (and if it wasn’t so cold, I might like it more!).
Oh, one more thing about those stupid mass holiday mailings: What the fuck? If you can’t pick up the phone and tell me that cousin Melissa is pregnant again, then I don’t want to hear it through an e-mail two months after she has delivered! My mom asked me to write my paragraph for the family mass e-mail, and this is honestly what I gave her:
She changed it around of course. But God I hate those things!
I look forward to Christams because it’s a day off with pay. What beats that? Plus, I live many states away from my family, which means I can send everyone gift certificates and no one is offended (and I don’t have to go near a mall in December).
Christmas to me means several bottles of wine, a stack of videos, a locked front door, and a handy guy (usually my hsuband these days). Worship services are held at random throughout the day. Hotcha.
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