'Tis the season

Well, not quite, but it's getting disgustingly close--close enough that some of the extreme whack-job pseudo-politicians and talk-show goofballs are, again, trumpeting on about this country's "war on christmas."



Warning: This is a long post, even from me. It's not exactly a positive post, either. My inner curmudgeon is bursting through. If you read this whole post, you'll learn a lot about why I am who I am. I've inserted a break so that you can be warned.





It's as if they are no longer allowed to celebrate the holiday their religion stole from several other religions in its effort to subvert those other religions, or something.

For many years, I absolutely loathed christmas and just about all things associated with it. I cite several reasons that arose during my formative years, not the least of which was that, during this season, my father seemed to get more inebriated more often, with the result that he was harder to live with. I didn't always understand this as a kid, but as I grew, I figured out the trend.

By the time my folks divorced, I was in high school, and into my fifth or sixth year of band. This time of year would see the transition from marching season to concert band season, usually with a dismal football team record (as if it mattered--the marching band was there to play our music, first and foremost). Concert band season always started with preparations for the christmas concert--these being the days before consciousness that calling it such bordered on promulgating christianity over other belief systems. Although it was not quite as bad during my freshman and sophomore years (maybe I just don't remember it as well), the preparation for these performances during my junior and senior years became something well beyond tedious, likely a reflection of the lack of gravitas exhibited by many of the other band members that resulted in ad nauseum rehearsals of the same five or ten seasonal tunes, to the point that to this day I find christmas carols objectionable.

Concurrently, my awareness of issues larger than myself continued to grow, and I realized by the time I was in middle school that the majority of the really big global conflicts and many of the smaller ones over the last two thousand years were over religious belief systems in one way or another. The Crusades were specifically over religion, although there were some economic subtexts. Many of the Europeans who settled in North America came here in part to have opportunity to practice their own version of religion, rather than be persecuted for not following a dictated system in their home countries. I learned a little about "the Troubles" in Northern Ireland, and how much of that strife was over which way people worshiped the same god (although later in life, I have learned more about the political background, much of that background had to do with the creation of the Church of England). The Russian Revolution? Yes, there were big religious factors--a population revolting against the idea that a bunch of inbred dolts were ordained by their imaginary friend to rule the country and to hell with the poor or those who didn't have the favor of the monarchy.

I remember telling my mother that I didn't see any point in attending church any more when I was in grade school. I was probably nine or ten, perhaps eleven. By the time I reached eighth grade, I had started self-identifying as an atheist, although I may not have known what that meant as I do today. Knowing myself, I am fairly sure that part of my statement of atheism was an eighth-grader's revolt, meant to shock to some degree, but comfortable that should a teacher call me out to my parents that my mother would have shot back with something like, "So? What of it? He doesn't believe in your god, and neither do I!"

Fast-forward a few years, and I had aged into my twenties. During that decade, many in society find spouses, begin families, and so on. Me? Nope. My experience with my own father was such that I was reluctant to start a family unless I had much better resources than I had at hand. Money was one such resource--I'd heard my folks argue over money many times when I was a little kid--but patience was certainly another. One big factor was that I lacked enough self-confidence to build any sort of dating relationship that might lead to marriage--a prerequisite for me if I were to have children, since I wanted very much to give any children of mine a better childhood than I had experienced (I think most responsible parents feel that way, although their definition of "better" may vary widely). I was a lonely guy for most of that decade--I had few girlfriends, and not a whole lot of close friendships. One result was that if I ventured out to shop for christmas gifts for those in my circle of family and friends I wanted to honor, I felt doubly lonely watching the couples and families shopping together--all under the obnoxious noise of christmas tunes I didn't like recorded on MUZAK tapes that ran a quarter-pitch flat and played over loudspeaker systems with lousy acoustics...

No, I didn't like christmas. At all.

I'm still not over-fond of it. There is the hypocrisy of the constant bleating of "the reason for the season is Christ" from a vocal segment of society that the rest of the year looks at every opportunity to rob people blind--especially those "less fortunate" folks. There are the garish decorations, many of which having nothing to do with the concept of salvation (although the concept of "salvation" dovetails nicely with the much older sense that winter solstice was leading to the rebirth of spring). While I, like many, enjoy getting stuff I can use as gifts, I feel that I have a lot of stuff I don't really need, and am running out of space to add more. I am coming to see the wisdom in a statement made by a coworker in 1985 or so, "I just give people food for christmas! They'll use it, it doesn't just sit on a shelf and collect dust."

As an aside, I wonder what he would think about the experiment of putting a package of french fries on a shelf to see how long it took for them to start rotting.

Over the last fifteen years, I've gotten a bit mellower about the late-year gift-giving season--at least internally. I still find myself disgusted that stores get out the christmas decorations in early October, before Halloween. When I worked in a bike shop, I refused to hang christmas lights before Thanksgiving. I haven't done any decorating in my own home for decades, although I have relented a bit and allowed Jenn and her daughters to have a tree every other year (we have a plastic tree that came with LEDs already affixed). I help my mother and stepfather assemble their tree most years, since the tree is important to my mom (even though she is atheist).

I bristle at the notion that "black Friday" has to come earlier and earlier, though. Some big retail stores are open ON Thanksgiving day, in effort to capture more dollars from people who want to get "good deals" on stuff to give as gifts to people who will quit messing with that gift a week or two into the next year, well before the credit card bill has been paid off.

Even so, I've not felt over-stressed about "Black Friday" for some time. In the bike shops, it was either just another busy sales day or a total snoozer--the hordes that charge into the big box stores weren't considering a bike shop a big destination.

This year, however, will be a bit different for me. As I've noted, I'm working part-time at Home Depot now. On Black Friday, I'm scheduled to be at work by four-thirty in the morning, in preparation for the store to open at five (instead of six). I'll be getting out of bed by three that morning, which means I will probably go to bed around seven the night before--assuming I can convince my brain to go to sleep that early. Over the next few weeks, I will also get to "enjoy" a few shifts working in the tree corral--yes, Home Depot sells cut trees, and for what seem like ludicrous prices to one who last sold or bought a cut tree when in high school thirty-five years ago.

I'll remind myself--on a daily basis, if need be--that "this, too, shall pass. At least for this year."