I’m here to bitch and moan about Christmas, but it’s not the actual holiday I dislike. It’s the mental frenzy of shoppers I encounter upon leaving my home to go anyplace where products are sold. It could be the LCBO, it could be the mall, it could even be the “Everything For A Dollar” store. There’s never a shortage of pushy housewives, screaming children, annoying teen mallrats, and bitchy power-shoppers. It’s sad that a wonderful holiday such as Christmas must cause me so much stress because of these freaks. You can try to blame it on the stores displaying their festive wares far too early, the Christmas tunes piped into every speaker system in the country, or the polar bear Coca-Cola commercials on TV.  But the truth is that it’s not the fault of any of those things. Marketing and advertising have been around forever. The cause of this mayhem is really just the consumer. If consumers didn’t get so bent out of shape at the thought, “Oh My GOD It’s Almost Christmas”, we wouldn’t be in this sorry state of affairs every fall. Is it really going to enrich your fathers’ life if you give him that 42″ plasma flat panel TV? Commercials say it will. People are just corporate whores. Everyone needs to relax. It’s not the end of the world if you don’t find that FUBU sweater in an XXL for your overweight nephew. Nor is the sky going to fall if you cannot fathom spending $25 on a coffee mug simply because it says “slut” on it for your sister (because its SO her). I just don’t understand. Maybe I’m so bitter and cynical about it because I’m poor and cannot afford to buy my loved ones whatever their little hearts desire. That could be it, but I really don’t think so.

The point is that everyone needs to relax a bit around this time of year. It pisses me off when I’m in a store and you hear things like “I’m not ready for Christmas yet” and “it always comes so fast” and “it seems to be earlier every year”. What is wrong with everyone? Christmas has come at the same time of year EVERY year since the birth of Christ. It’s not like they change the date on us, it’s not like they spring it on us. How can you not be ready? Not only that, what is there to be ready for? It’s a holiday! Buy a turkey, toss it in the freezer. Pick up some fixin’s and toss ‘em in the fridge. If you can’t find a gift for everyone first time around, get over it. That gift must not be out there. Can’t find the right gift?  Do something from the heart. Yeah it sounds cheesy, but that’s really what it’s about. Think about it.  After you open your gifts on “the big day”, what do you do? You watch a DVD and stuff your face with Christmas food. You hang with the family and laugh and joke and have a merry time. Is anyone looking at gifts? Nope. Well, unless you’re 10 and you just got the latest thing from Hasbro. But we’re not children, we’re all adults here and we don’t care about toys from Hasbro. We care about other toys, but those are not the sort to be opened on Christmas surrounded by family. That opens a whole new can of worms, and I’m not touching that in this rant.

I don’t know about the rest of you out there, but all I really want for Christmas is to be alive and well, ready to start another year. I dig the Christmas tunes, I dig the get-togethers, I dig the festive decor. I do not dig the insane shoppers that ruin it for everyone. I see them in stores getting angered because there are no more copies of that CD in stock. Yeah, because its the Best Buy clerks’ fault that you waited until Dec. 24th to pick up this oh-so important must-have item. If it was that imperative that you have it, why didn’t you get your ass out to the shops weeks ago and pick it up? Like I said, it’s not like the season creeps up on you. Same time every year. I see them lining their children up in malls to sit on some sweaty guys knee and tell him what they want. This is a man who chooses to have children sit on him hour after hour and talk to him. They cry, they puke, they sometimes pee, and a select few smell bad. Who wants this job? This is enough for me to not want to take my children there. I think as a kid, I saw Santa once, and that was enough. Besides, I didn’t get any of the crap I told him I wanted anyway, so I viewed it as pointless to show up after that. Which brings me back to my initial point. As a kid, you care what you get. You get sad when you don’t get it. You have a wish list. What kind of adult actually has a wish list? Seriously, I mean a list of crap you are dying to own? Nobody does. We only make lists when people say to us “what do you want?”. Then we have to rack our brains trying to figure out an item we actually want. We must think of something, because we know they’re gonna buy us a gift anyway. So we BETTER think of something or else we’ll end up with a Christmas sweater or candles or a mug or fruitcake. Thus feeding the frenzy that I speak of. I guess its a vicious circle. There is no escape. I could crawl into a hole for the season, but then i’d miss out on the food and merriment. I suppose every year I complain about this to no avail. I’m fully aware nothing will ever be done about this, it will only stay the same, and get worse even. Really, I think what everyone wants is money so they can buy their own stuff as they need it and pay their bills. Giving money is helpful and does not require a trip to the stores. Oh crap, then the banks will be overflowing with people. You cannot win. I’m not sure I made much sense, but sense is not the name of the game anyway. everyone’s going to do their own thing, people are going to get stressed and have heart attacks over it and I’m sure there are people out there who just love going to crowded malls and fighting the mob scene. I know it’s kind of a weak arguement. There are many holes in my view. Still, i’d rather sit on my ass at home and do something else. Like make cookies.