I should interject here that today, as of this posting, is President's birthday and that you should all wish him a "Merry Birthday" or " Season's Birthday" or some other mash-up. He just LOOOOOVES that! Make it a game and try to come up with one he hasn't heard before.
So, yes, I am annoyed at the level of commercialism foisted upon the holidays. Of course, as a kid, I longed for the Sears Wishbook to be published and sent out (yes, back then catalogs had to be printed. There was no "online".) or for my Aunt to pick one up since there wasn't a Sears near my home. I would pour over it looking at the latest toy line-ups and wishing I could get everything on the "boys" pages...although the EasyBake oven in the "girls" section always looked tempting, but mainly because I like cupcakes. As a kid, you see Christmas through the unjaded eyes of youth where you hope Santa brings you the cool thing you saw in the toy-store rather than the tired eyes of an adult seeing the line you will have to come back and stand in to buy that special toy to put under the tree. I'm not alone in my frustrations either.
Going through that transition can be pretty hard, and I can remember clearly the events that started to warp my perceptions into the cold, hard reality of adulthood. I learned the hard way, as a kid, that Santa can be an asshole, when my cousin got everything on MY list, and I only got a couple. It didn't take long to make the connection between his parents being more affluent than my single Mom, and the uneven toy bounty under the tree. Sie la vie. It wasn't like I was living the life of Tiny Tim or anything. I did ok at Christmas, but I thought Santa was being unfairly biased.
The next eye-opening occurrence was a few years later. By this time, I was already at the age (8-12?) when I was beginning to question my belief in mythical philanthropists. Ironically, this event also involved the same cousin and a number of other family members. Ask anyone and they will probably confirm that I can be strangely observant of the least likely things to be observed. In this case, I noticed that as everyone was shuffled upstairs to the living room to hang out around the tree, one man that I didn't know (presumably a family friend) appeared to be quietly making his way back down to the basement rec room. Suspicious, I thought. About fifteen minutes later, when, what to my wondering eyes should appear, but Santa Claus tromping through the snow up to the sliding, glass door of the living room. Apparently my adolescent mind could not rationalize a personal visit from St. Nick himself. Shouldn't he be getting ready to drop presents around the world?! At some point I decided to innocently ask one of my Aunts where the mysterious family friend had gone...."perhaps I should go downstairs and check?" I asked. "No, no, there is nobody down there now. Go see what Santa brought you.". I didn't buy that bluff for a second. My young, quizzical, fact-retaining mind had remembered that there was a cleverly disguised fire-escape in the basement. I remembered this mainly because I had always hoped to sneak into it and climb outside. I connected the dots and quickly reasoned that the Santa in the living room, was indeed the missing family friend. It was a very 'Sherlock Holmes' moment for me. I was quite proud of my deduction, but at the same time I also realized a wave of disappointment began to wash over me. "So the adults want me to believe THIS is Santa Claus? Has Santa always been a counterfeit?! IS THAT WHY I DIDN'T GET ALL THE STUFF ON MY LIST?!!" (yes, I do have a problem with letting things go).
WTF?!
It all pretty much fell apart from there. Now I see the holiday through jaded Adult-vision™, where I mostly see the chaos that the holiday creates. The crazy mall parking pile-ups, frazzled shoppers, delayed or cancelled flights, and the decorations that have lost their luster, due mainly to the fact that they have been up since OCTOBER! I used to like it when the city decorations went up, and Christmas music started playing. It seemed to change the aire around everything. Now it makes me cringe because I have grown tired of all of it before December even gets started. What feeling of holiday magic I tried to hold onto has pretty much been beaten and stomped and bloodied by the rushing of the commercial bulldozer trying to ram holiday products and fake cheer down your throat. Maybe I didn't see it before but wasn't there a time when the gifts, toys, and music were there to signal the holiday and to make it special? Now Christmas only feels like a two month long Black Friday sales promotion. Christmas in no longer the "season to be jolly" but "the season to find great bargains!". Stores don't decorate to celebrate, but to signal the latest stock of Christmassy items are in, which is why they start so early, to lengthen the "Christmas" shopping period. Ugh. Seriously, we as a culture are pathetic.
No comment.
To top it off, many of my favorite family traditions are gone, since most of the family are gone, or at least the many of the ones I associate with holiday gatherings. The Matriarchs and Patriarchs all seem to be gone and nobody seems to take the lead at getting people together. Also, if my family is any sign, people seem like they'd generally rather be somewhere else, especially the younger ones who spend most of the time texting or ignoring everyone. I love technology, but it seems to have bred a growing apathy toward togetherness. And everyone is always exhausted because it is the mandate of parents these days to enroll every kid in 20 different activities such as Christmas plays, winter lacrosse, or whatever trendy 6 year old do these days. Whatever. I bet the next generation won't even care that the Rankin-Bass Rudolph the Red-nosed Reindeer is on Blu-ray. I don't know, something just isn't there anymore. do I need kids to appreciate Christmas now? I can't tell if people with kids are having more fun or not.
At least Clark tried!
Well, I'm off to enjoy Christmas the only way I know how anymore...imbibing massive amounts of alcohol. The Elves are paging me to get my ass to the store and pick up some more booze and head over to their place. Maybe if one of the girl elves gets drunk enough, I'll have a Merry Christmas after all.
I really wanted to come up with a good double-entendre for that but fuck it...which ironically is what I'm hoping to do.
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