Why I Hate Xmas

I hate Christmas. It is my least favorite holiday. I can pull the atheist card and claim religious reasons for this, but that isn't the reason. Christmas is effectively a secular holiday. Its traditions predate Christianity and incorporate pagan elements. Christmas has as much do with Christ as Thursday has with Thor. The reason I hate Christmas is because it is all about buying and selling.

Ever since Thanksgiving, I have had a mailbox deluged by sales circulars trying to get me to part with my cold hard cash. I have my girlfriend's kids clamoring to get shit they will break in a month or two. I learned my lesson last year as they broke their Wii by May probably because they decided an XBox was better. Fuck that.

This year, I bought everyone on my list a book. Why? Because books are deliberately a lame gift. They are unexciting. They are boring. But they don't take batteries, and they promote literacy which everyone on my list sorely needs. (I can be this blunt because none of them bothers to read my blog. They are a dumb bunch. Reading hurts their brains.)

I am seriously considering a total boycott of Christmas in 2011. I am to that point. It isn't because I don't love the people in my life. I just hate having to put a price tag on that love or hoping that my gifts will be received instead of rejected. The whole affair nauseates me. Christmas would be much better without that gift giving tradition.

As for receiving gifts, I hate that about as much as giving gifts. If I hate the materialism and consumerism behind gift giving, I really hate the clutter of gift receiving. I almost always end up with clothing I'm never going to wear or products I am never going to use. One year, I remember chucking a brand new thingamajig in the trash. I never even opened the box. I didn't reveal that to the gift giver because I didn't want to hurt their feelings. But I don't need more shit cluttering my space. When I want something, I usually just go get it, and there is very little that I want. I told my girlfriend this year that all I wanted was a copy of Blood Meridian. You can't go wrong buying me a book from my reading list.

The boycott idea is really starting to appeal to me. I have met people who boycott the holiday completely. These aren't Jewish people either or even atheists. Surprisingly, a lot of Christians hate the holiday because they recognize there isn't anything Christian about it. It's just an excuse for people to waste a lot of money. I already go against the mainstream on a lot of stuff, so boycotting Christmas will just be another item on the list of crazy things that define who I am.

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