Go Scrooge Yourself!

Ah the holidays…..The most wonderful time of the year! Children laughing, people visiting families and sitting down for holiday dinners, relatives coming to feast on the meal that took days to prepare and then leave with a full plate and not so much as an offer to help clean up, the bickering between grown siblings, the drunken fights and a year of resentment pent up waiting to be unleashed at the first opportunity! Why do we put ourselves through the same routine year after year? What is this mess of a tradition that has been handed down to each generation, some kind of payback for a failed previous life? Year after year we are thrown this “Holiday Season” as it is called and made to believe that “it is better to give than to receive”. Better for who? I’ll tell you who……….The Christians and THE RETAIL INDUSTRY!

Flashback 4000 years ago and we’ll find that Pagans were the first to celebrate Saturnalia or the Winter Solstice. They celebrated the return of the sun after a long cold winter. The evergreen was a symbol of life that endured during the harsh winter months so they brought them into their homes. Some hung apples from them to remind them that the spring and summer would eventually return hence the decorating of the tree. The name Christmas would not come for another 2o00 years when Christ was born(if he really was born that is). The exact day of the Christ’s birth has never been pinpointed. Many say that it has been celebrated since 98 AD. In 137 AD the Bishop of Rome ordered the birthday of Christ celebrated as a solemn feast. In 350 AD another Bishop of Rome, Julius I, chose December 25th as the official day of Christmas.

Christians did not believe in the Pagan rituals and traditions so they decided to name it Christmas which translates into Mass of Christ. It is believed by many that Christmas was made up to compete with the Pagan celebrations of winter. By the middle ages the Pagan celebrations were replaced by Christian traditions because it was thought by the church that the Pagan traditions and beliefs were an abomination. So as usual, the Christians once again imposed their beliefs onto the rest of society. Some things just never change do they!?!

So what’s with all this pressure to give, give, give?? Why is it that we spend hundreds if not thousands of dollars every year on people we rarely see and usually bitch about constantly? How is it that we were able to corrupt such a meaningful celebration of the season and of life and of our surroundings into such a chaotic and bogus reason to spend mindlessly by either emptying our pockets or racking up debt only to realize that by the time all is said and done, the only thing we have left to show for the holiday is the longing for everything to slow down for a while and to never see your relatives again (or for at least another year).

According to some, no one was in the habit of giving gifts until the late 1800’s when stories of Santa Claus giving gifts to the children became popular, most likely a story made up by American retailers to boost sales and to start a tradition that would keep them rich for centuries to come. This tradition was taken from, once again, the Pagans that would take to the street during the winter solstice celebrations and bring food and good-luck gifts, usually fruit, to one another for the coming year. Those traditions, in my mind, make much more sense than all of the hoopla that we are forced to endure for at least 4 months out of the year. Retailers have shoved Christmas and most other holidays down our throats and up our asses in an attempt to line their pockets and use our economy as an excuse to justify their actions.

I would have to think that the worst part to this entire Holiday Season is that everything we do echoes down into the future so what legacy are we leaving behind for the next generation. What are we teaching kids by going broke in order to satisfy a child who in no way has earned the right to be lavished with expensive gifts. ”If you are good just before Christmas time then Santa will bring you everything you ask for and afterward you can go back to being the total prick that you are!” How about we stop rewarding them for bad behavior and ONLY reward them when they actually earn it? Why does it have to be one time out of the year? Sorry dumb asses but it seems that your spawn have ultimately won the upper hand and you have only become a game piece in one of the hundreds of games that you spoiled your spunk with!

Okay so I don’t want to make this all about the children because enough of them already think it is! After all it isn’t their fault that they don’t have the proper representation in life to guide them, that’s your own damned fault! Did you really think that raising them would be as easy as making them? Yeah you would think that!

So after all is said and done, I still find myself trying to justify to others why it is that I am not fond of the holiday season. I find myself attempting to defend my thoughts and my beliefs and continue to have to listen to the cries of certain others such as, “but it’s the time of year that you should be with your family” and “you should be tolerant and put all of your feelings aside”. Show me where the fuck this rule book is that dictates to me how I should ignore everything that I am feeling inside simply so that I can sit in a house full of people that quite frankly I either don’t know or just don’t give a rats ass about one way or the other. Tell me not that it’s written in the “good book” and that I missed that chapter during the Sunday school lessons I was forced to attend as a child!

You are probably wondering why I am the way I am and now that I have gotten to this part of this post I can say without a doubt that the firm belief in faith that my mother holds in the church mixed with the uncertainty and stupidity of my fathers ridiculous quest for God, has given me the ability to seek out information and distinguish reality from absurdity. For me, the holidays were forever changed because as a child my parents made their intentions for divorce a reality during that time but make no mistake, they did not ruin my ability to seek out the truth and to celebrate it as I see fit. In fact, my eyes are open much wider because of it.

So the next time you are bouncing around town on Christmas Eve doing last minute holiday shopping for a co-worker that you barely know or for a nephew that is fresh out of detention and you are stressing and counting your last pennies, try and remember where the true meaning of the holiday came from and toss them an apple instead!