Is maybe a slightly misleading title. If you read this very soon after it posts, I might still be in the middle of preparing the annual Christmas morning brunch for my family. Because family is what it’s all about for me. See my previous post on Yule. I don’t actually hate Christmas, but I do hate what our commercialized culture has done to it.
The first Christmas items appear on store shelves right after the long weekend in August (so still in the first week of August). By the end of September, Christmas has at least the same level of shelf dedication in major retail chains as Halloween, and on November 1st, Christmas music becomes the norm and by the middle of the month, it’s inescapable. In the last few years as a student, I barely go anywhere that isn’t campus. That’s been especially true this year, but I’ve already lost Whamageddon. Still in the running on Mariahpocalypse, but I have to do major grocery shopping between now and Christmas, so I’m not sure how to rate my chances. The commercialized Christmas atmosphere quickly becomes oppressive to me, to the point where I don’t even want to be involved in most of the holiday decoration that we still do around our own home. We don’t decorate that late, but I’m already tired of the season by the time we get there (and exams probably aren’t done yet).
Next up, the practice of certain groups of Christians who are so desperate to be oppressed that they re-manufacture the War on Christmas every year and find things to interpret as anti-Christian bigotry that are just an attempt to be inclusive of folks who have different traditions than they do. To them, I wish a very Happy Holidays.
And then there’s the societal pressure that you have to have to suck it up and play nice for the holidays no matter how much of an asshole someone is. Sorry, no. For the same reason that someone doesn’t magically become a better person by dying (“You shouldn’t speak ill of the dead.”), they don’t magically become a better person just because there’s a particular holiday coming up.
But maybe most importantly, there’s the pressure to have fun and be happy because it’s Christmas. Also, no. A lot of people every year are going through their first solstice season without someone very important to them and that’s just not conducive to being happy all the time. This year, I’m one of those people, and if I feel like it’s the right time to be sad or depressed, I’m not going to put on a brave face for people I don’t see all the time, and the people closest to me will understand. It’s okay to not be okay all the time and it’s okay not to force yourself to pretend you are.
Is that enough reasons?
But celebrate what you wish as you wish. If you’re still excited by Christmas, I have no interest in taking that away from you, but I would like you to understand that not everyone is in that same mental space.
Joyous Yule.
Be well, everyone.
Life, Writing, Weirdness 
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