bah humbug. i hate this time of year. at least it's almost over. each year, another god awful celebration of the american dollar comes and goes, and i have not been sad to watch it's passing since i was a very young child.
being the son of pastors in the salvation can really sour you opinion of x-mas much earlier than your typical, post adolescent cynicism will...
let me list some of the factors that led to my seemingly premature hatred of this vile day.
( note that all of these occurences began happening before i was eight, and continued every year, save one, until i moved out my parents house at fifteen.)
1. knowing on thanksgiving that i'd better enjoy my bed, since i would be spending the night at the church for the next month while my parents counted all the money that those poor bellringer dudes brought in.
2. riding around to drop off the kettle workers at seven in the morning cause i'm too young to stay home alone.
3. smelling all the booze and cigarette smoke in the cramped fifteen passenger vans. (at the time, i had not so often smelled the same way, and was not accustomed to it.)
4.being harassed by drunk homeless people (don't get me wrong i have nothing against homeless folk, but when your seven or eight, your sensitivity can be overridden when your sitting between four of them., and they're all yelling at each other. i was scared shitless! it got easier as i got older, but it was uncomfortable at first.)
5. being that my parents worked for the shitty salvation army, they were invariably poor. so even when we finally got to x-mas, our presents were usually what was left over from the donation drives.
6. i have hated x-mas songs since i can remember, and every year it's the same shit. over and over and over and over and over... there's no escape.
i'm sure there are more. i just needed to write this all out. people think i'm just a grumpy fucking crank, but i have legitimate and long standing reasons to hate this fucking holiday, and new reasons have been piling on as i have grown older (i.e. a blossoming hatred of religion at sixteen, and a burgeoning hatred of consumerism at eighteen, at then a full acceptance of the extent of my jaded and bitter outlook at twenty.)
plus everybody is just so god damned stressed! even if they fucking love x-mas and look forward to it every year, it doesn't seem like anyone ever has any fun at all until it's all over and they eat ham.
anyway, that was my tirade. i hope it has been informative.
being the son of pastors in the salvation can really sour you opinion of x-mas much earlier than your typical, post adolescent cynicism will...
let me list some of the factors that led to my seemingly premature hatred of this vile day.
( note that all of these occurences began happening before i was eight, and continued every year, save one, until i moved out my parents house at fifteen.)
1. knowing on thanksgiving that i'd better enjoy my bed, since i would be spending the night at the church for the next month while my parents counted all the money that those poor bellringer dudes brought in.
2. riding around to drop off the kettle workers at seven in the morning cause i'm too young to stay home alone.
3. smelling all the booze and cigarette smoke in the cramped fifteen passenger vans. (at the time, i had not so often smelled the same way, and was not accustomed to it.)
4.being harassed by drunk homeless people (don't get me wrong i have nothing against homeless folk, but when your seven or eight, your sensitivity can be overridden when your sitting between four of them., and they're all yelling at each other. i was scared shitless! it got easier as i got older, but it was uncomfortable at first.)
5. being that my parents worked for the shitty salvation army, they were invariably poor. so even when we finally got to x-mas, our presents were usually what was left over from the donation drives.
6. i have hated x-mas songs since i can remember, and every year it's the same shit. over and over and over and over and over... there's no escape.
i'm sure there are more. i just needed to write this all out. people think i'm just a grumpy fucking crank, but i have legitimate and long standing reasons to hate this fucking holiday, and new reasons have been piling on as i have grown older (i.e. a blossoming hatred of religion at sixteen, and a burgeoning hatred of consumerism at eighteen, at then a full acceptance of the extent of my jaded and bitter outlook at twenty.)
plus everybody is just so god damned stressed! even if they fucking love x-mas and look forward to it every year, it doesn't seem like anyone ever has any fun at all until it's all over and they eat ham.
anyway, that was my tirade. i hope it has been informative.