Christmas

I don't like Christmas very much.... in fact I don't think I like Christmas at all. I don’t mean to go all Scrooge on everyone, but Christmas is just one of those days/seasons that drives me ever closer to that edge of insanity that I so carefully try to avoid.

My dislikes starts the day after Halloween. That is when the music, or at least what is called music, starts to be blasted over every speaker in every mall and store in the country. It is bad music played by poor musicians over lousy speakers. I once heard someone say that there was some very good Christmas music but that it never gets played. I believe that perhaps with the exception of Handel’s Messiah good Christmas music may be an oxymoron.

Along with the music come the decorations (I have always wondered when the stores hide the decorations from January to October- but perhaps it is better that I don’t know - if I did, I might be tempted to destroy them). I know they are put up to get me into the mood to buy presents and therefore do my bit to sustain the economy but seeing Christmas decorations up the first week of November does not put me in the buying mood. By the time that I force myself into a mall to look for a present, I am so sick and tired of seeing the silly things that I want to run out of the store before I buy anything.

I have always been curious who the marking genius was who decided that playing Christmas music in a food stores was a good thing? Does someone, anyone think that I am going to buy more romaine lettuce in mid November if I hear Christmas music?

The closer it gets to Christmas the more likely it is that I will have to walk an extra 10 minutes from where I parked the car to get to the bank at the mall, the more likely it will be that it will take me 15 minutes longer to get home because the traffic is suddenly worse (where do all these people come from?) and the less likely that I will wait in line to buy something that I thought I needed. (Today I was going to buy a pair of warm socks for my trip to Sudbury – but the line up at Marks was so long – I didn’t bother).

Along with the music and all of the other in-house hype to buy comes the expectation and the promise that this is the season of love and joy, of families being together and of sharing. Everywhere one turns one is reminded what a wonderful time of year this is. However, for countless thousands of people in this country that is simply not true. For so many this is the season to despair, to be desperately lonely or to, at least for another year, realize that you and the people you care about will have to do without. For so many it is a time when they feel they have to accumulate even more debt so that they can compete with others around them. Get rid of the damn music and all of the ads and TV programs that are trying to sell a lie of mythological proportions. Family and good food and being together are important. But they are important every day and we don’t need (or at least we should not need) bad music to tell us so.

I like being with my grandkids; but I like being with them anytime. It is fun to watch them open their stockings; but it is just as much fun playing with them in the park. Hell just give me the 10 days off work and I will visit them. I don’t need a reason and I am reasonably sure that both I and everyone else would be a lot less tired and probably in a better, more relaxed mood if we didn’t have the music in our ears for seven weeks.  Bah humbug!!!