Of the many holidays we celebrate here in this country, I hate Christmas the most. And not because of some anti-religious sentiment toward the event that the holiday is supposed to stand for, but for much of the same reasons I dislike Thanksgiving: The over-commercialization of it all.
Christmas ads start before the previous holiday (Thanksgiving) is even over. And retail sales begin literally hours after the official close of that day (i.e. "Doorbuster" sales at 4AM), now dubiously known as "Black Friday." People have actually died in their effort to join the mad running of the bulls that is the crowd fighting through the doors at the local Wal-Mart. Then again, I guess the best way to celebrate Christ on his birthday is to go join him, right? Now THAT'S Christmas Spirit!
I hate the endless retarded Christmas music in every damn store. I can't even go buy a bottle of booze at the local corner store without having Jingle Bells ringing in my head, which requires a purchasing second bottle to drown out (now maybe I see the reason for the music). Whoever first decided to play Christmas music for 45 straight days in a retail outlet should have been shot...repeatedly...with frozen reindeer shit, or some such thing befitting of the season they apparently love so much.
It probably doesn't help that the weather is always crappy during the holidays. If Christmas were in, say, July, I'd probably enjoy it a touch more (I'd still be disgruntled at the established norm of overspending on superficial shit for gifts). Every walk across a crowded Wal-Mart parking lot is a foot-wetting trek through oil-soaked slush mixed with sand, rock salt, and the occasional ad flyer and loose receipt. The sky is perpetually gray and usually dropping some form of cold, incessant precipitation that chills you just enough to really piss you off, which you then take out on the cashier that was hired the week before and thrown into the shark pit with no idea what to do other than "page a manager" when there's a problem with the register. People spend beyond their means just to provide little Timmy that $200 Wii or Xbox console he doesn't need and which will just make him fatter and more socially inept than he already has become playing his now-obsolete Playstation II (which cost another $200 two Christmases ago). Then these same people bitch and whine about having too much debt and beg for congress to step in and do something about it. Maybe, instead of bailout checks, congress should abolish Christmas and eliminate some of the problem at the root.
But then there would be no reason for a month full of Jingle Bells. Wouldn't want that now, would we?
