I'm a Scrooge and I'm cool with that

This is a repost. I originally wrote this last year and I'm just posting it again because I like it :)

I hate Christmas.

Yep. I just said that. Take a minute to process.

Why, you ask? Well, let me tell you. First, the obvious: it's not because I'm Jewish. Okay, it's not just because I'm Jewish. We actually celebrated Christmas when I was a kid, I'm not really sure why. Probably because my parents wanted presents, too, and if you only do Hanukkah the adults don't get anything. But we actually had a little plastic tree that my mom would put on the dining room table, and for a few years there we had stockings actually hanging from the mantle (with care). So, you can't blame my Jeweyness on this. It would be more accurate to blame my atheism on it, but I'll get to that later after I explain some more.

No, what I hate about Christmas is that it is the king of what I call "Forced Gift Giving Days." Gifts are not optional on Forced Gift Giving Days, especially if you spend the day with people who actually do like Christmas, they're going to expect that you give them something. I hate this idea; actually the whole thing seriously pisses me off. You have these days where you're required to give gifts to people, and sometimes they're people you never speak to any other day of the year and actually don't really like very much. WTF?? What is the point of that?

My point is that you shouldn't need a holiday to be nice to the people that you care about. If you want to give somebody a gift to show your appreciation, you should do that on any day of the year that you like. And I do, actually, about 10 years ago I instituted my "For no particular reason" gift giving policy, and if I ever want to help somebody out or tell them I like them, I do that, even if it's March 15th and not December 25th. (actually I'm pretty sure March 15th is the Ides of March so that may be a bad example, but that was the first date I pulled out of my ass head.) I give gifts to my kids' teachers on May 10th (another ass/head date), I give gifts to my friends on September 22 (that's actually my birthday: make a note!!).  My kids get showered with fucking toys all year long (grandparents) they certainly don't need another haul of crap on this one day out of the year.

Now, maybe you're thinking that Christmas is a beautiful family tradition and I shouldn't be depriving my kids of the experience, but, you know, there are other days out of the year that are beautiful family traditions where gifts aren't required, and my kids are going to be taught to appreciate those days, instead. It is my intention to raise them with this attitude that I have, that if you love somebody, you tell them that on any day of the year, and not just the one day that has been assigned to telling people you love them (February 14th. EWW!)

Now, maybe if Christmas were an actual holiday worth celebrating, like if I believed in Jesus and wanted to celebrate his birthday and appreciate HIM, I could see how Christmas would be something I would be in to, but I am an atheist (actually more of an agnostic, but that's not the point right now) and even if the holiday were still about its actual purpose, which it isn't, that's just not a day that interests me. But, of course, we know that Christmas is about rampant materialism and supporting our capitalist society and showing off to other people all the shit you can or can't afford and has nothing to do with good will toward man or love thy neighbor or any of that shit. What's important about Christmas is that retail businesses can have large 4th quarter profits to show their shareholders that they're doing well and still a safe investment.

Why the fuck would I want to celebrate THAT?

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