There's no denying it. I am a "Scrooge". That doesn't mean I'm intemperate with those who seek charity for the needy (I like to give to food charities). That doesn't mean I imagine children should be sent to workhouse if their parents cannot meet the rent. (As long as they stay quiet I'm okay with kids...most of the time.) None of those extreme over-the-top vile things, but what I am is tired of the spectacle of Christmas which stifles the senses and overruns all media and such, spilling into the streets and filling up the even the stillness with typically mewling Christmas songs.
I'm just tired of it before it gets started. If Christmas lasted a week, maybe even two I'd be all in. A two week spree of holiday cheer and merchandising I could support as a bally end-of-the-year celebration. We all made it again you see; and here's something to show our appreciation all around. That would be dandy. But the damned holiday starts in September now and drags on for week after stultifying week and by the time the actual holiday itslef arrives it's all weary anti-climax.
Now none of this has to do with the religious as side of Christmas. As a semi-regular church goer I find that part handled with reasonable care and done in reasonable taste. Ignored by the merchandising crowd for the most part, the birth of Jesus is something which to marked and celebrated. I'm down with that, unless you're not and I'm down with that too. To each his own I always say.
But the other, the dreary life-draining amble to acquire presents to make the significant others in our lives "happy" is really become a chore. I resist putting up the Christmas tree (a little thing really) as it means caving in sooner than I want to the holiday which like the Blob in both versions of that sci-fi movie seeks to absorb all around it. I want to hold it off as long as I can, to cherish the moments of the holiday with family and friends, compress them and make them potent and memorable.
So in the end I'm not so much against Christmas, but rather against it as currently practiced in a culture which has well and truly lost its way. I choose differently as much as I can, and that my friends makes me a "Scrooge".
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I think Christmas needs scaled right back from the commercial industry it has become. It should be mainly for families, with parents giving modest gifts to one another, and to their kids. Having said that, I do like the excuse it gives me to play my Jim Reeves Christmas album.
ReplyDeleteChristmas has become one of the major profit centers for the economy and that's a dangerous thing indeed. In the industrialized world we have largely fulfilled our needs (though there's real slippage there) and now have an economy built around wants. That's capricious at best.
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