I'm a bona fide Scrooge. I don't much care for Christmas, no sir-e-bob!
I know it's not even October yet, but I can feel it looming, and I need to get some stuff off my chest.
First, my family always stresses out and makes it terrible. Everyone argues, my dad drinks too much, my disabled brother gets overstimulated and melts down, my mom acts all passive aggressive about how long the meal took to make even though she TOLD US WE DIDN'T HAVE TO HELP AND SHOOED US OUT OF THE KITCHEN WHEN WE TRIED TO ANYWAY! My grandparents and aunts and cousins don't know anything about me, so they all ask the same questions every year. Do you have a girlfriend? Why not, are you gay? We'd still love you if you were. What are you doing for work? When are you gonna get a real job? Boy, you've gotten tall. You're taller than your dad now. Have you stopped growing yet? It all makes me just want to be alone and wait for things to blow over.
Second, it feels completely disingenuous. Don't get me wrong, I LOVE the Christmas season, the buildup, the ambiance, the music, the weather (well, 10 or 15 years ago maybe; nowadays we get summer weather year round), I especially love the theme of doing good unto others and being nice to people for once. But then December 26th comes along and it's all immediately over. No slow descent back to normality, just a hard cutoff. It's like the whole month leading up to it was just an act, and everyone's just waiting until they can stop pretending. Why do people only feel the need to be nice just once a year? Why stop on some arbitrary date in the middle of winter? It's ridiculous.
Third, I don't like receiving gifts from people. I don't know why, but receiving gifts always makes me feel guilty and uncomfortable. On the flip side, I really enjoy giving gifts to people, it makes me feel good to buy things for my friends and family, but when the tables are turned I just feel awful. I shouldn't, but I do. Because of the disingenuousness mentioned above, it makes me feel like anyone giving me a gift is just doing it because it's an obligation, not because it means anything. It feels transactional to me, like my gifts to them are inadequate, like I'm indebted to them more than I can give. I don't know, maybe it's just all the rampant commercialization, Charlie Brown style. There's little I want that I can't just get myself.
Christmas rubs me the wrong way every year. It has ever since I was a child. The magic is gone, it's not fun anymore. It feels like we're just going through the motions every year, it's all become too habitual. I feel like a rat in a cage. The definition of insanity, doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results.