Why I Hate Christmas

Outside of the fact that I’m a cheapskate and hate shopping for presents, there are 3 main reasons why I hate Christmas.

First, it takes up a whole month, at a minimum.  In the U.S. at least you have the Thanksgiving buffer.  Some advertisers may violate that, but it helps.  Here in the Czech Republic, where there is no Thanksgiving, plenty of shops start their Christmas specials in mid-November and I’ve seen some Ho Ho Hoking it up as early as Halloween.

No other holiday does that.  Halloween gets one day.  The 4th of July gets one day.  Washington and Lincoln don’t even get their birthdays celebrated individually anymore, they got merged into Presidents day, which means they have to share the honor with 40+ others, some of whom have been pretty nasty characters.  New Year’s Eve gets a few hours, and most people can’t even remember it the next day.

One whole month, a 12th of a year, and some people leave their lights and their trees up longer than that.  Now, don’t get me wrong, I think the flashing lights are pretty but after a week or so the novelty fades.  If I wanted to see bright lights every single night, I’d live in Las Vegas.

Reason number 2 is the serious disconnect between people about the reasons for the holiday.  I am not a Christian, I have no intention of ever becoming a Christian.  If you are going to insist on this being about Christ,   I’m not interested.

Besides, it’s a little strange to hear people talking about peace on earth and goodwill to all men while they give their kids plastic M-16s with realistic sound effects and crazy old Uncle Bob gets a book about the great battles of WWII.

The 3rd reason is that this is the season that people’s brains turn to mush.  Seriously, the songs and the films are hideous.  I

I Loved Him in Rear Window, Though

thought Love, Actually was  pretty nice  but I’ve seen it already.  I know how every single one of those stories plays out, I know every clever line before it is spoken.  I am no longer interested.

I have a particular beef, however, with It’s a Wonderful Life.  This, to me, says something really, really depressing about the society we live in.  Here’s the problem:  When the film was made, in 1946, it was not a huge success.  It lost money.  It got nominated for a lot of Oscars, but didn’t win any.  By 1948, it was forgotten.  Just one of many Hollywood films that nobody remembered or cared about.  Then, in the late ’70s, cable TV came along.  Cable channels needed material, something to fill up the hours, and they couldn’t pay top dollar for new releases.  So, they started playing It’s a Wonderful Life over and over and over again, and advertising it as a Christmas classic.  So, it became one.

In other words, it was shoved down our throats and we were told to like it and, by golly, we did.  That bothers me.