This essay will contain four-letter words.
I have learned to loathe Scrooges. I do not use that Dickensian term in it's financially, fiduciary sense. I don't hate him for his love of the free market and how it cures all ills. It's for his pure hatred and disdain of Christmas.
He hated the warmth and sweetness of humanity that bubbled to the surface every time December rolled around. He thought it was fake and phony and for the weak-minded. Scrooge believed Christmas was for children and the immature.
He thought it was all a lie. Well, fuck him.
I honest to God don't believe in anything out there. (See, I had a little wordplay there. Words are neat!) Yeah, I'm not spiritual and I don't wear ugly holiday sweaters and I don't volunteer at the mission and I don't dress up as Santa and I've never been on Christmas vacation to anywhere and I've never been on a sleigh ride. But for me, at this very moment, prepping for my thirty-sixth Christmas season, I want everyone to know this: Have a great Christmas. Seriously. Do it.
Why, you ask? When I seem so jaded and angry and I am so very frustrated with my Mondays through Fridays? I know the Santa myth and I know the true history of Christmas as a market ploy in the 1850's, and that Jesus was born in March or something. I know the economy is in shambles. I know. I'm a big boy.
But this is, for millions of bored, sad and irritated Americans, the most fun we can have all year. And its good fun. You know, family-type fun; that stuff we all say we should have more of? I know it doesn't center around spoiled rotten bitches on TV, and there aren't strippers and mixed martial arts or gritty crime dramas…but there are those stupid pointless aspects of life to consider; those little spurs in our collective boots with have to dust of from time to time. Friendship. Good spirits. Selflessness. Reflection.
This is that time when we remind ourselves of who we are and where we want to go. It's almost painful to fight deep soulful reflection. Maybe it will bum you out, but you have to do it. We all do. Just give something. It can't hurt.
It is a spiritual reset. It is a mental rest. Society alters itself briefly. This is the time for tradition and obligation and going out of your way. Things change direction for a bit. It should be like a party. Go to one. Cater one. Plan one.
Celebrate whatever. Do it your own way. Spend a lot of money at the brilliantly decorated mall or make everything by hand. Go to church or hang out with your family who probably miss you.
Just don't give me the hackneyed speech about Christmas being a scam or a sham or completely bought and packaged and sold to us in plastic containers. Shut the hell up. You and all the jack-off Scrooges like you are totally killing my mistletoe buzz.
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