Monday, December 12, 2011

You're A Mean One

Greetings all. Welcome back to this wonderful mess that is my thoughts on the screen. It is December, and the "holiday season" is in full swing. I don't say "holiday season" because I have a problem with saying Christmas, it is just that there are so many holidays in December. Chanukah, Kwanzaa, Christmas, my birthday....yeah, I know I am the only one to celebrate that last one, but it is still a holiday to me. So what brings me here today? Is it to talk about how much I hate Lil Wayne? Is it to discuss how awesome the Bob's Boneyard Podcast is? Is it to recommend Human Boom Boxes for Christmas presents? (you know, it's that thing where you put a midget on your shoulder and make him sing gangsta rap) Nay nay...what brings me here is the holiday season...and my hatred for it.

You tell someone that you hate Halloween, the 4th of July, or Arbor Day and no one blinks an eye. You tell them that you don't like Christmas and you may as well have just dropped a Cleveland Steamer on their chest! Let me start by saying that I love giving presents. I love seeing the happiness on people's faces when I give them a gift that they were not expecting. I also enjoy receiving presents..but who doesn't? What I don't like is that Christmas begins as soon as Halloween is over, and doesn't end until the New Year. I have no affinity for the Zombie Jebus, neither baby or adult. I don't like people. There is no qualifying statement there, I just don't like people. And when you put thousands of them in the store at the same time, I am ready to kill them. I also hate twice a year religious people. Easter and Christmas bring out all the fair weather religious nuts. People who could give two shits about any religion during the year feel the need to profess their love for Jebus and how they are upset that his birthday (or so some claim is his birthday) has been turned into a commercial holiday.

What else don't I like, you might ask? I don't like Christmas music. Too much of it seems contrived, especially any made after the 1970s. There are a few select songs that I enjoy; The Twelve Days of Christmas by Bob and Doug McKenzie Watch it Here I also like the theme to The Grinch. Aside from that, they are few and far between. I don't want to hear Christina Aguilera singing anything, let alone butchering Christmas songs. I don't like Holiday movies and television specials either. I don't want to see Menorah the Explorer (very special Chanukah edition), I don't want to see A Fish Called Kwanzaa, I only want the claymation classics. Rudolph, Frosty, Jack Frost, and the like..How The Grinch Stole Christmas, and Charlie Brown's Christmas. These are not acceptable for any reason except they remind me of my youth.

I also don't like decorating anything. My job is to put up the Christmas tree and run the lights. I am not expected to decorate it at all. I like watching the wife and kids decorate because it makes them happy. And them being happy makes me happy. I am not Ebenezer Scrooge, I don't get upset with others for enjoying the Christmas holiday. I also don't need this "season" to tell me to be kind to my fellow man. I am who I am year round. I don't get nicer around the holidays, I don't blow people off for the rest of the year either. If I pass someone on the sidewalk I say hello, or how you doin? If someone is entering a store around the same time as me, I will step aside and hold the door so that they can go first. I don't need the month of December to make me do these things.

Growing up with a birthday that is 10 days before Christmas may have soured me on the holiday because my birthday was always lumped in with it, I don't know. I don't spoil anyone else's holiday by being a curmudgeon, but I just don't like the season. So for all of you that genuinely enjoy Christmas....please continue to do so. For those that take the "good will toward men" thing and forget about it come New Year's Day..knock yourself out. When it is June 22 and I am still asking people how they are, and holding doors for old folks while you are cutting those same elderly off because they are too slow and holding you up....ask yourself, honestly, is it that I have no Christmas spirit? Or do I have it all year long and have no need for the month of December and its forced happiness? Enjoy your holidays, whichever one you celebrate, and until next time....Stay Salty.

-Salty Dog