My War on Christmas

the one that declared it. Before you think I’m a scrooge, I’m going to explain why I would declare war on such a joyous and celebrated holiday. I’m not trying to change merry Christmas to happy holidays, I’m trying to remove the month of December and make it exactly what it is, the cold month, the last month.

There are several facets of Christmas that upsets me. One is the materialistic commercial bonanza that starts Thanksgiving or sooner. Secondly I don’t like making a religious holiday such an American institution and I don’t like when parents lie to their kids about Santa Claus.

Get the Fuck Ready Retail Person, You’re About to Get Fucked

When I was a kid stores were rarely open on Sundays let alone on Thanksgiving or Christmas. Now Black Friday starts on Thanksgiving and millions of people have to forgo a traditional Thansgiving dinner with family and try not to get beat up or trampled while people go crazy over sale prices that may or may not be for christmas presents.

The business news is always how the month of December is this chance to bolster the economy with buyers spending cash and using credit to buy up goods on sale. Its almost an economic institution to force people to buy more than they can afford the last month of the year.

People are terrible when they are shopping. Expectations are high for the holidays. Everyone is running around with this TV/Hollywood infused idea of what christmas is supposed to be and when the needs aren’t met, people become assholes. I’ve worked retail during the holidays and I have never seen so many people act like babies to have the perfect holiday. Manners are out the window, self-entitlement is at an all time high and the retail worker is in the way of an unattainable expectation so the retail worker must be cut down.

The meetings before the holiday shopping is like being in Winston Churchill’s war bunker planning on fronts and when and where to dispatch the new recruits. Positions must be held at all cost and supplies must be ordered. At the end of the day the retail person goes home beat and the hope in humanity completely crushed. No one knows who wins the war because the kids open their presents and they are let down because they didn’t get what they want and the number of presents are never enough no matter how many presents there are.

Seriously, Love Can’t be Bought

This tradition of Christmas is promoting buying love from people by giving them gifts. Birthdays make sense because in a way you’re celebrating them being smart and strong enough to live another year, but Christmas is some Jewish guy’s birthday, but on top of that it is a time to sell blood and turning in cans and signing up for credit cards with insane interest rates to make sure people love you.

Just watch commercials this time a year and see the woman look like she is in love with him when he gives her jewelry or a Lexus with a bow on top. Look at the kids’ reactions when they open the new hot thing and run over and hug their parents like they actually love them more than the day before.

There is a lot of pressure to gift giving. Getting something wrong and you can see it as your gift is opened and the person has to switch from disappointment or confusion to a fake happiness and thanks you, but you know the person hates it and you even ask them in a month if the gift is being used or being enjoyed and the person goes from forgetting what you are talking about or anxiety of knowing the gift is unused and either lying or promising to use it soon and thanks you again.

Because of the big box stores the gifts that are affordable are all made in China. So like the retail people getting fucked, some kid sweated his ass off making the thing you buy and it’s cheap and will probably break soon anyway. In 2005 China made 656 million dollars on toys to the US and the number is higher this year. In 2005 China made 69 million on fake Crhistmas trees and another 620 million dollars on Christmas decorations and goods. That is a lot of money made on a Christian holiday by a communist country.

We’re Going to Get You Used to Being Lied To, Kids

Kids all over the United States and some other countries wake up to find presents are left for them under the tree by a giant bearded man who can fly and deliver gifts to millions of homes in one night. The parents swear to these kids that it is true that this jolly old saint Nick flew to their home and deliver goods and ate the cookies and drank the milk left out.

Why? Why are you lying to your kids? Some of it comes from social pressure of all the neighbors also lying to their kids, so why would you want your kid going to school and dispelling myths or coming home crying wondering why Santa didn’t come to their house, but is it to get them used to being lied to when it comes to a higher power?

It must be confusing to get to a certain age and find out that there is no Santa Claus, Easter bunny or tooth fairy. There are psychological effects to children when they find out they had been lied to. Parental control and trust erodes and also makes dishonesty more of a grey area rather than a defect of character.

When kids don’t get what they want from Santa and then find out that Santa isn’t real it becomes really easy for the child to assume God doesn’t exist based on prayer to miracle ratios. This isn’t such a terrible consequence, but believing in God and then not isn’t an easy transition for most.

Santa is a Little Too Catholic to be Celebrated by Protestants

There is a lot of controversy of who and what Santa Clause is, but one thing is for sure it has nothing to do with Jesus’s birthday. While many versions of Santa Claus existed in European myth for centuries, the modern Santa Claus is pure American made.

Why the protestants would endorse a Saint and/or a pagan myth is beyond me, but he is here to stay. Christmas wasn’t even celebrated until the last century in America and Oklahoma didn’t even let it be a holiday until 1907.

Even Christmas itself was banned by our puritan pilgrims because of how popish and paeanistic it was. It wasn’t until Charles Dickens wrote ‘A Christmas Carol’ did England start celebrating Christmas again and here in the United States it wasn’t until the middle of the 19th century.

Now these red blooded Americans are up in arms about replacing ‘Merry Christmas’ with ‘Happy Holidays’ when it is their beloved founding fathers that didn’t celebrate such a catholic and heathen celebration.

Jesus Wasn’t Even Born on Christmas

There is no biblical or historical proof that Jesus was born on or around December 25th. This was the day that was picked in the mid fourth century to compete with other popular religions of the time.

This world was one Roman Caesar away from everyone celebrating Isis, a Goddess who promised all the same stuff Jesus does, but it isn’t about who is right, but who has the biggest army.

When Rome accepted Christianity and the church became organized and powerful, one of the first things it had to do was attract followers. Why did a religion have to attract followers? The Tithe and political power.

The Church at that time took some lessons from the Roman Army and adopted popular pagan rituals as their own in order to lessen the blow of converting those German and French savages to Jesus…at sword point.

A lot of cultures celebrate a winter solstice, end of harvest, the longest night or what have you. There were other gods born on December 25th, so the church made December 25th Christ Mass.

Some say Jesus was born in September others say May. An astronomer believes the star everyone saw was in June, but no one knows when Jesus was born. Even the gospels in the bible can’t agree.

Christmas Isn’t Even Christian

Most of the rituals put on for Christmas has pagan origins. The tree, the santa, the reindeer, the yule log, the fruit cake and roasting chestnuts over an open fire are all not Christian practices. Even black friday, cyber monday and free shipping day are just made up by companies to bolster sales.

In conclusion, Christmas as a religious holiday is a smorgasbord of a lot of different customs that are put together to make a religious holiday more palatable and profitable.

Easter is More Christian

The holiday that should be a much greater religious holiday is Easter, but it too has been turned into a cartoon version with a magic bunny hiding eggs. This is when Jesus ascended into heaven. Anyone can be born, but not just anyone can be dead, roll a rock out of the way, say goodbye to a few friends and be teleported Star Trek style into heaven.

TURN IT OFF! I WANT TO STAB MYSELF IN MY EARHOLE!

Back to the secular stuff, the fucking music is the absolute worst part. I don’t mind a Christmas song now and then, but all the time dawn to midnight from Thanksgiving to Christmas!?! There are only ten songs and a million variation of each song.

I used to work in retail jobs that forced us to listen to Christmas music for a whole month and I started envisioning myself going on a murder spree with a belt fed weapon to the song Carol of the Bells playing over and over.

You want to know why I’m thinking about going shock & awe on Christmas, its the music. I haaaaattteeee it. I don’t even like one song.

Its in every commercial, in every store and restaurant, its playing on the sidewalks outside, its on most radio station, its…unavoidable! You might like it, but you might have power over when you hear it and don’t hear it, but when you are someone that has to hear it day in and day out, you can’t help but wish it was January.

In Conclusion

I am not at war at families taking the time to all sit down together and be together and even exchange a few gifts. I think it is important for families to do that. Sometimes it takes a given day to get everyone together because Mother’s day and Father’s day and birthdays sometimes isn’t enough.

I’m at war at a holiday that is insincere, a lie, a capitalistic rape and a musical holocaust. Strong words, but I mean it. I won’t say Merry Christmas and I will respond to your Merry Christmas with a happy holidays because that is what it is, a group of holidays near each other.

This time of year just reminds me of everything that is wrong with our society and it brings out the worst flaws in people for an entire month.