Wracked by insomnia I have had a chance to do a lot of incoherent thinking and I have come to the conclusion that it isn't Christmas I despise; it is the commercialism that surrounds it. I grew up in a family where Christmas was a social tradition, not a religious one. The highlights for me as a child were always that I would get to see my grandfather who never missed Christmas in 18 years. It is only as I have gotten older that I realized how important it was to have him around, and how much it meant to me as a kid. My Aunt Lucy, who was actually my Great Aunt Lucy would come down and spend some time with us and we always had fun. But we didn't have a service or a church function for it. So I don't get too wrapped up in the baby Jesus aspect of it.
I think that we were more pagan or at least more heathen about the celebration, we had fires in the fireplace and feasts and family around us on the darkest days of the years and it was really quite beautiful.
Now, I am older, I don't see my grandfather every Christmas, I alternate with my wife the holidays were we travel to see parents and there is more stress involved. I have also worked in some form of customer service job every year since I was 18, so Christmas Day is the day between last minute shopping and the first day of returns. My experience has always been that people are miserable around the holidays because they are so wrapped up in their own bullshit, the same bullshit ironically, that I am wrapped up in. So what happens is that everybody is ruining everybody else's Christmas.
A couple of years ago I worked for a company that sold rugby equipment on line and I had a woman tell me that I (and she stressed that it was me personally) was ruining Christmas. Not her Christmas, but the whole day was being spoiled by me. I don't think I had ever been so infuriated or insulted in my life. For one I happen to work at a desk called the customer service desk, but I didn't place, pick or ship orders, I only took the bullshit phone calls. Second, the issue was that she fucked up her order and selected the wrong size of helmet. So if your Christmas is so tenuous that a rugby helmet is the breaking point. Then hey, fuck it. Throw the blame my way.
Anyway, I am rambling, because of the insomnia, or my own addled state, and I am making a promise to myself that when I start to develop my own family traditions of Christmas I am going to have to try and find a way to deemphasize the commercial, tons of plastic stuff, aspect of it and focus on the stories, and the loved ones and the wonderful aspects of everything that I remember as a kid.
Merry Christmas to everybody who reads my notes, which I think is Zupertelic, and maybe one or two other people. I hope that you have a splendid Holiday Season.
I think that we were more pagan or at least more heathen about the celebration, we had fires in the fireplace and feasts and family around us on the darkest days of the years and it was really quite beautiful.
Now, I am older, I don't see my grandfather every Christmas, I alternate with my wife the holidays were we travel to see parents and there is more stress involved. I have also worked in some form of customer service job every year since I was 18, so Christmas Day is the day between last minute shopping and the first day of returns. My experience has always been that people are miserable around the holidays because they are so wrapped up in their own bullshit, the same bullshit ironically, that I am wrapped up in. So what happens is that everybody is ruining everybody else's Christmas.
A couple of years ago I worked for a company that sold rugby equipment on line and I had a woman tell me that I (and she stressed that it was me personally) was ruining Christmas. Not her Christmas, but the whole day was being spoiled by me. I don't think I had ever been so infuriated or insulted in my life. For one I happen to work at a desk called the customer service desk, but I didn't place, pick or ship orders, I only took the bullshit phone calls. Second, the issue was that she fucked up her order and selected the wrong size of helmet. So if your Christmas is so tenuous that a rugby helmet is the breaking point. Then hey, fuck it. Throw the blame my way.
Anyway, I am rambling, because of the insomnia, or my own addled state, and I am making a promise to myself that when I start to develop my own family traditions of Christmas I am going to have to try and find a way to deemphasize the commercial, tons of plastic stuff, aspect of it and focus on the stories, and the loved ones and the wonderful aspects of everything that I remember as a kid.
Merry Christmas to everybody who reads my notes, which I think is Zupertelic, and maybe one or two other people. I hope that you have a splendid Holiday Season.
niobe:
Happy Holidays! 