I hate Christmas. The mall is full of nothing but women and children. All you hear is, ‘I want this,’ ‘Get me this,’ ‘I have to have this’… and then there’s the children. And they’re all by my store ’cause they stuck the mall Santa right outside ringing his stupid bell. As if you need a bell to notice a 300-pound alcoholic in a red suit. ‘Ho, ho, ho,’ all day long. So, nice as can be, I go outside, and ask him to shut the hell up. He takes a swing at me. So, I lay a hook into his fat belly and he goes down. Beard comes off, all the kids start crying and I’m the bad guy.
– Al Bundy, Married With Children
God bless Al Bundy because that’s the best Christmas quote ever!
And asking The Big Guy to bless Al is just about as religious as this holiday’s gonna get! The only Christmas miracle is that curmudgeons everywhere don’t rise up and embark upon the kind of anti-yuletide revolution that would have extroverts barricading themselves into their homes like The Walking Dead. Well…that, and the fact that my alcoholic family refuses to have anything to do with me, which may well be the real Festivus miracle.
The stupidity starts with Black Friday where all manner of crazy white women (and they’re all crazy) storm retail establishments at 2 a.m. only to get into fistfights that make the Tyson – Paul fight look tame by comparison. And it’s all in an effort to secure the latest must-have toy or electronic device, which their overly-spoiled progeny will discard or destroy in less than 48 hours.
And that’s the best part!
With no time to catch your breath, it’s on to Fox News’ “War on Christmas” affront du jour, which typically involves
- Gays
- Blacks
- The transgendered
- Hispanics
- Asians
- Muslims
- Obama
- Migrants
- Taylor Swift
- Liberals
- “Happy Holidays”
- Anyone named Clinton, and
- Whatever is or isn’t on a Starbucks’ cup.
I don’t know about you, but all I care about is whether I miss that overly small cardboard ring and sear at least four of my fingertips clean off.
And contrary to those Fox fatheads, I don’t give a flying you-know-what if someone wishes me a happy Hanukkah, happy Kwanzaa, merry Christmas, whatever Muslims celebrate, or, god forbid, happy holidays. It’s the implied requirement to be jolly or merry that bothers me. What if I’m perfectly happy being unhappy? Dickens was wrong because Ebenezer Scrooge was really on to something.
I’m perfectly fine indulging in the curmudgeonly pastime of bitching about anything artificial, commercial, religious, or simply annoying, thank you very much! And it just so happens that Christmas is the singular holiday that meets all those criteria and more! Anything that brings out the en masse can’t possibly be a good thing.
And all these insipid winter solstice celebrations are just that – artificial. Not ones to be bound by convention, those newfangled religious leaders concocted current holidays to compete with those fun-loving nature-worshipping pagans (Those were the days!), and the further you go down the religious road you go, the wackier those celebrations have become.
Speaking of “wacky,” does anyone know how Scientologists celebrate the season? Festive and fanciful hand drawn pictures of Xenu? On second thought, don’t tell me because I’m sure it would be far too depressing. Perhaps if we revived the whole fertility festival thing, I might not be so cranky.
And just when you think you’ve recovered from those absurdly macabre Halloween displays, you’re completely blinded by the 1.2 billion candlepower cornea searing dioramas your overly competitive neighbors insist upon erecting just to prove they love the baby Jesus, Rudolph and Frosty more than you do!
Has any American anywhere ever considered the Taoist possibility that less is more? Don’t answer that one, either, because I’m sure it would be far too depressing.
And just when you think it can’t get any worse, it’s time to spend “quality” time with your family. What could possibly go wrong with that in the Trump era, particularly with copious amounts of alcohol involved? TV sitcoms never get this one right. Where’s the four-letter epithets, the requisite recriminations, and all the passing out?
The only thing worse than the terrifying family scenario is having to fly somewhere to endure your “loved ones.” Talk about adding insult to injury. That kind of grim determination requires a sadomasochistic streak along the lines of serving in Donald Trump’s cabinet – which is exactly where those mega-mental-midgets should be kept.
I would rather be catapulted 1,200 miles through the upper reaches of the atmosphere in the hope of landing on a stack of twin-size mattresses than to have to contend with another airport, endure the TSA, get on another plane, and have to deal with those surly sky waitresses. No to mention the female variety. It takes true talent to make flying that miserable, but they’re more than up to it. Personally, I’d rather take my chances with the terrorists.
By the way, has the TSA managed to catch just one?
But even if you stay home, you’re not nearly off the hook. What on God’s green earth gave generally semi-rational human beings the notion that anyone would want a gaggle of their neighbors showing up unannounced at their front door to sing the same sad Christmas carols we’ve been hearing at Walmart since early May?
Neighbors are already a nuisance already, and if I wanted to have to suffer through another miserably off-key rendition of Silent Night, I’d invite the Osmonds over for Christmas dinner. This, of course, begs the question: do Mormons celebrate Christmas? And if they do, do they have to visit all their wives? Talk about hell on earth!
Then the fruitcakes start arriving with happy notes! What I want to know is who thought those denser-than-a-neutron-star horrors were a good idea? Perhaps I’ll save this year’s batch to hurl at next year’s carolers. That would certainly send ’em scattering into the various backyards where they’d be forced to cower for days.
They won’t ring my damn doorbell during dinnertime again, now will they!
And it’s not nearly over, either!
The next sign of the imminent yuletide apocalypse is those Christmas missives start infesting your mailbox. If I haven’t made as much as a minimal effort to contact you before December, what makes you think I want to hear from you now? What makes you think I’m the least bit interested in you, your ill-mannered progenies’ abject failure, or your family’s abundantly eminently boring lives?
Then finally, despite having developed a full-blown fear of Amazon, it’s time to box up and return all the shit your friends and family gave you because they put no thought into it whatsoever. Thank you so much for that Donald Trump Chia Pet. I can’t tell you how thrilled I am with the $15 donation to the Society for Homeless LBGTQ capybaras in my name. And I don’t know how I ever got along without an electric spatula.
Oh! And engraving it so it couldn’t be returned was a nice touch..
At least I haven’t given up on booze this year!