'Tis the Season

Season’s Greetings all ye’ merry and cherry bloggers out there in cyberspace. How is your computer screen looking, old, new, cracked in three places when you accidentally dropped it? Have no fear for now is the time of year when you can demand a new one, a bigger one, a more expensive one. That way you can read my words clearer and sharper than ever before, maybe your new computer could talk to you, wouldn’t that be neat. If not a computer then why not something else, a new baseball glove, a Playstation 3, or two new coats? After all ‘Tis the Season to rack up on gifts, food, and everything else correct?

That is what Christmas has become after all, a “Me” holiday. What am I going to do for Christmas? What am I going to get for Christmas? Or my personally favorite, what am I going to get (fill in name of relative/friend/loved one)? All the while actually thinking what is the cheapest thing I can get him/her…What will make them happy enough…I can’t get them that b/c then I have to get something better for so and so…Welcome to the holidays.

Christmas, my pardons to those who don’t celebrate Christmas but I do and I think that you are intelligent and kind enough to understand I am not trying to exclude your holiday yet writing Christmahanakwanzaka just gets old. Anyways, this time of year has completely dissolved from its humble beginnings into another Hallmark Holiday based on the selfishness of the human race. How’d Christmas begin, an elder gentlemen would make and distribute toys to all the children in his town for nothing in return…for nothing in return…How’d that go over today? Would you be happy if you got nothing from your parents but bought them each an expensive piece of clothing? Would you be ok going to a party when nobody gave you anything yet you bought a special present for all the guests? Most, but not all, would say on some levels they’d be disappointed and yet that is exactly where the Christmas holidays come from, a man giving away everything while seeking nothing in return.

Today we don’t do that. Today it is about Me, about how much I get, how much it costs, whether it is in style or not. Our wants overcome everything else for about a month out of the year and it is really starting to upset me. Where’s the true holiday spirit, where’s the joy and love that is supposed to resonate this time of year?

My girlfriend recently told me, “I love the idea of Christmas; however the actual day is just too stressful. Go to Grandma’s, go to my dad’s, go to my aunt’s, go home with my mom, cook dinner….the list goes on.” And I think her stress resonates with a lot of people, at least ones who are old enough to realize how much effort Christmas takes. My mother hates it (albeit secretly) my dad and I are the same in that we don’t get stressed easily. And my little brother and sister do not really understand yet. But this holiday has lost its meaning for me, and I’m guessing a lot of people tend to feel the same.

Have a Nice Day

T