The Scrooge Post

I am just not ready. I can't do it. It happened too fast. I needed more time to prepare, to steel myself for the experience. Yes. I am talking about the Christmas season. Wasn't it just last week that I was sweating and complaining about the heat (well, yeah, but not the point)? Didn't we just go to the river? Wasn't my birthday just a few weeks ago? I still have reminants of my Halloween costume around the apartment. How did this happen? Shouldn't scientists be concerned that the days are going faster?

But it is here and nothing is going to change that. Christmas is upon us. The older I get, the less I like this holiday. Let's see, for the past three Christmases, I have been out of work. Now without my mom, I really just can't get into the spirit of things. I don't want to go to the mall. I don't want to fight the crowds. I don't want to puzzle over what to get all the people on my list.

Why is this holiday so popular? And don't give me any crap about the birth of our Lord because the malls are not crowded out of love for Christ. In fact, as the arrests at the after Thanksgiving Day sales show us, these harried Christmas shoppers are anything but Christ-like. Really. It's just a laptop. And probably not that great of one.

With this anti-holiday spirit in mind, I would like to make a list of why I dislike this holiday so much:

1. Logistics. Who goes where on which day? So stressful!
2. Rudolf the Red Nosed Reindeer. I hate this song more than words can express.
3. The mall. It's crowded and despite all those stores and sales, you usually come away lacking gifts and a small piece of your soul.
4. Parents who take their hyper/wailing kids to the overcrowded malls. I realize that is where they keep Santa, but perhaps the Santa trip should be just that.
5. Christmas albums by singers. I don't mind them contributing to a compilation, but the Mariah Carey and Destiny's Child Christmas albums just bug me.
6. Bargain insanity.
7. Fruitcake. It is not an acceptable gift. Ever. Especially when it comes from a miserly, freaking loaded lawyer. That is just wrong.
8. Santa Baby. It was cool when Eartha Kitt did it, but anyone else is just trying to hard. Except when Puffy did it. That was pretty sweet.

I promise to stop being a Scrooge and dedicate a post to why Christmas is actually not of The Devil in the near future.