R.I.P. Christmas

Well great, thanks everyone you killed Christmas, the only thing I liked about the holiday season. That's right Thanksgiving sucks because no matter where I go for Thanksgiving or what I do, I get asked, "So what are you thankful for?" I hate answering that, I mean honestly, most people hate it when I say this, but I can't really pinpoint anything to be thankful for. For instance this year I am thankful for having great friends, family, and depending on the kindness of strangers. But when I say "thankful" it belies the fact that if I still had a job and didn't lose all of my money, I wouldn't need to be such a mooch. It's like getting kicked in the balls and then thanking them for showing me that my testicles are still there. Don't get me wrong, I am very grateful for my wonderful family and friends, even almost total strangers doing nice things for me. The point is that everything I am grateful for shines light onto a major flaw in my life, in this case that I'm a deadbeat who would starve to death without help from someone else. So be thankful that enough people like me that I don't fucking starve to death... well I guess, but it's not really appropriate when we go around the table and people are thankful for actual blessings. New Years fucking sucks too, here is 9 years of New Years parties combined into one: I go to a place with people I barely know, there are at least 2 single guys to every one girl; I say some idiotic bullshit to all the single girls and they end up hooking up with the Clay Aikeniest douchebag there and I'm stuck scraping jello-out of those little container things in a last ditch effort to get a buzz to be able to stomach everyone else there who is obnoxiously drunk or disgustingly making out on every couch in the room. Trust me, I have plllleennntttyy of reminders of how much it sucks to be a lonely, I don't even really need a holiday to remind me.

So that leaves Christmas, which I actually do like, but people are so determined to harsh my buzz on Christmas I almost don't like it anymore. Firstly it's getting so cool to be gung-ho politically correct to the point that we have holiday parties, holiday trees, holiday butt-sex, whatever. I'm not sure how much of that is hype and how much is people responding to hype. I remember a few years ago I saw the C.E.O. (who was Jewish) walking the halls and I said, "I'm looking forward to the Holiday party" and he corrected me, "Christmas party, it's a Christmas party." But then I've also seen non-christian people that just use it as an excuse to be a wet blanket when the company has a white elephant or whatever (but they sure as shit don't go back to work, oh no, they just mope around). If the lesson here is anything else, it's that Christmas is practically a secular holiday now-a-days, I mean shit, you put a nativity scene anywhere and suddenly you're Hitler. So since it's so generic and secular; why the fuck wouldn't you celebrate it?

I like Christmas, so if you got some Scrooge bullshit to say, keep it to yourself. And especially don't come at me with this:
I hate buying a bunch of gifts for people. Well I like buying gifts for people, it's a good way to show people you care. It's also nice to try to get into people's heads and try to figure out something they would like. When you try to understand your friends better, you get to know them better. Or if they drop hints, it's a great way to show you actually pay attention to what they say. Unfortunately, this year I don't even know who I'll be able to get gifts for; but in years past, I would get them for almost everyone I knew. It was just fun, and sometimes I could try to turn my friends on to something I think they would enjoy like a book or a game, etc. You can recommend something to someone all day, but if you actually buy it for them then they don't have any excuse not to try it out.
I'm sick of Christmas specials where they have some miracle, that's so unrealistic. Jeeze, why don't you just dress up like Criss Angel and cut yourself, you whiny little bitch. That's the whole problem with this society, we want some scientific explanation for everything. Nothing is magical, nothing is special, everything is explainable, nothing is sacred, we are all just less hairy apes, and when we die (good or bad) we look forward to an eternity of being in a box 6 feet underground getting pissed on by drunken frat kids. Am I the only one who thinks there has to be more to life than this? That there has to be some divine force at work, that there is some miracle waiting to happen somewhere sometime? Well you can keep bumping primate uglies all the live-long day for all I care, but I'm going to find a higher purpose someday.
I just get everyone gift cards and I'm done with it. Nothing says, "I don't like you enough to try to figure out one fucking thing out of the bazillions of things in the world to give you" like a gift card. If you really need help here is my advice:

1. If they are really interested in something, like golf, and you don't know much about it. Don't get them golfing equipment, if they are worth their salt at golf they know what they like more than you do. But you can use this information to formulate an idea of a non-equipment gift, like personalized golf tees, a book on golfing, etc.
2. Throwbacks are a good idea, if you had a good time getting high and renting Grandma's Boy maybe you could get them the video, or maybe a t-shirt with your favorite catch phrase from the movie.
3. Custom gifts (or gifts you make yourself). I doubt even Scrooge would be cold-blooded enough not to like a handmade coffee mug with signatures from the entire Crachet family on it. They have these little pottery kiosks at most malls, where you paint it and they fire it in their kiln; it's also a fun activity for the little ones if they need a distraction while one of you is shopping.
4. All else fails, if you know ANYTHING that they tried out and liked you can type it into Amazon and it will have "people who bought this also bought" beneath the product they liked.

That's just off the top of my head, I don't even know your friends.

I'm calling it a Holiday Tree, all these things are just pagan rituals anyway. True, but I have yet to find irrefutable proof that anyone before the Christians had Christmas Trees. Mistletoe, stockings, even a man delivering presents were all Druidic, Pagan, or Germanic practices that were adopted by Christianity. I've heard a lot of urban legend types of things like a Christmas Tree, but details were really sketchy and no details were offered. But nothing really predates St. Boniface who chopped down a tree and somehow converted some Germanic tribes to Christianity. It was also used as a way for early missionaries to explain the lineage of Jesse to David to Jesus, like how we have family trees today. So not everything was totally ripped off the pagans.

People are celebrating Christmas earlier and earlier each year; can't we at least wait until after Thanksgiving? I do totally agree with this, while I'd rather have two months of Christmas and no Thanksgiving, I realize that Thanksgiving does mean a lot to some people to get together with family. Just as I believe that all other celebrations are important: Hanukka, Kwanza, Chinese New Year, etc. I would rather everyone have the holiday they want instead of nobody having any holidays at all, like I fear is happening right now. And if somehow someone mistook me for being Jewish and wished me Happy Hanukka I would smile and nod, not even correcting them. It's the spirit of the season, there is an electricity in the air, but it's going away and all of the sudden this is some sort of civil rights case. It's very sad, I wish for the days when people would hold the door open for the woman with her arms full of presents, people saying "Merry Christmas" to strangers, a playful snowball fight breaking out on the 16 Street Mall.

But I still love Christmas no matter how many Scrooges, how many P.C. Douchbags, and how many whiny emo kids don't. I don't care if it's just me and Toby Keith the last two people celebrating Christmas, I still love it!