This was originally posted on January 10, 2018. I imported it from my old site.
It’s now mid-January and, thankfully, the Christmas season is over with for another year.
I’ve noticed recently that the older I get, the more I despise the holiday season. I can remember as a child (and even as recently as a few years ago) thinking that Christmas was a magical time and looking forward to seeing family and friends. However, now I’m kind of a Grinch. Don’t get me wrong, I enjoy sending the odd messy toy to my sister’s kids, but that’s about all the joy I get out of it any more. Here’s why, in no particular order.
- Traveling. From about the week before Thanksgiving through the second week in January, traveling anywhere is so much more difficult than it has to be. Whether it’s on a plane or even to the grocery store. There’s always twice as many people as the rest of the year and more than half of them never travel. The result is that they slow the entire process down and everyone is late. No, you dumb woman, I won’t hold your shitty-pants baby while you try to stuff your 300 pound stroller into the overhead. This is why you’re single. Or, locally, you have all the drivers who aren’t used to the area so they swerve, drive slow, or just generally make a nuisance of themselves. This is why I honk and flip people off so much more over Christmas.
- Guilt. There are many layers to the typical guilt felt around the holidays. This includes guilt for not getting you sibling a comparable gift to the one they get you, the guilt for not spending enough time with family, guilt for not liking the people you’re forced to spend time with, or even the guilt of feeling like you need to actually attend family events. Case in point, I like to take time off over the Christmas break because it’s the one time of year that everyone in my office takes off. i.e. a vacation day doesn’t turn into a work from home day. However, I haven’t gone home for Christmas in several years (read “Traveling”). So, naturally, I feel guilty the entire time I’m home for not being there. (I prefer to go at off peak travel times, like when I can drive without fear of snow.)
- Busy. The entire place is busy. It doesn’t matter where you go, it’s always packed. The mall, grocery store, movies, the roads, gym, etc. People get wild hares up their ass and decide they have to do something now. Funny thing is, at the mall or grocery store, there’s a shit ton of people there, but none of them actually have any bags…??? It’s not a hangout spot or your babysitter. Get the hell out. Also, my office is next to a mall in an office park. When they built the road infrastructure for this area, the only thing here was the mall…but they’ve built like 10 giant office buildings in a ring around the mall and haven’t upgraded the roads. So, it’s a bitch to get anywhere around here on a regular day. On a holiday season day, you’re lucky to even be able to turn out of the parking lot. Then, when you go to do a U at the stop light, there’s so much traffic, you risk death to even get in the correct lane. This goes on for months. Why must you leave the mall at rush hour?!?
- Bitchy. I’ve touched on this above, but when people are out an about, there’s so much going on, it’s so loud, people are hanging out with people they “put up with” (read: family), and they’re sick of the driving. The result is a general bitchy attitude. To each other, store clerks, kids, family, other drivers, etc. The happy time of the year is marred by this general feeling. From everyone. Even the ones pretending to be happy. You know, if you all held hands, you could completely block the aisle. Or, just go slower so the stationary objects overtake you.
- Drivers. I ranted about this above. People don’t pay attention when they drive, they look at their phones. Quadruple the number of drivers in any given area and put them in unfamiliar territory, it ends up taking three times as long to get anywhere. What’s the point?? Antisocial online shopping FTW.
- Spending. The best part of the holiday? Spending money you don’t have on shit you don’t need for people you don’t like and paying the CC off for the rest of the year to do it all over again. And that doesn’t include any travel expenses or plane tickets!
- Decorations. So, I have about 10 boxes of Christmas crap and 4 trees, last count. A giant ass main tree, a Star Trek tree, a small tree from college, and a Charley Brown tree. I haven’t set up anything but the CB one for 3 years. No lights, nothing. Just that little stick and its one bulb. (But Lunchbox broke the bulb putting it away this year, so now it’s even more pathetic.) As I age, the more I appreciate my free time. Spending a weekend putting up decorations and another taking them down just doesn’t appeal to me anymore. I get why people spend a lot of time and money on them, but it’s just not for me. Maybe next year I’ll put up the tree with all the Star Trek Hallmark ornaments. It’s fun to plug them in and have them all start speaking at once.
Anyway, I think I’ve ranted enough for one day. Next year I hope you’ll join me in being a Grinch and boycotting all this BS. Just sit at home in your underwear, play Nintendo, and eat Peanut Butter M&Ms.