I don't usually rant and rave and carry on like a madman, but it's time to take a stand and say "I've had a gutful of Christmas" (and I suspect many others feel the same).
The Christmas season hits the ludicrous stage when I can't even do ordinary grocery shopping at the supermarket without being bombarded with Christmas music for over one-twelfth of the year; I can't walk into my local club without being visually assaulted by dozens of very fake looking trees brimming with flashing multicoloured lights and enough tinsel on display to choke a T-Rex.
Multiply the clubs and the stores with that music; shops, etc.
with those gaudy Christmas displays, dozens, correction, hundreds of times over - you just can't escape.
I don't think I should have to be subjected to such an ever-present and intense barrage of all things Christmas related for weeks and weeks on end.
You know Christmas has gotten more than just a bit out of control when the stores start putting up the Christmas displays and propaganda by early November if not mid to late October.
If late October, that's one-sixth of an entire year you're put under pressure and reminded of your annual duty.
Who needs it? I mean popular magazines at this time of year are full of articles on 'how to survive Christmas'.
Why should such advice be necessary in the first place? Why people voluntarily subject themselves to this annual madness, the torture of stress and bills and preparations and writing cards and hyping up their positive expectations for a wonderful time that nearly always tends to be way out of actual reach is quite beyond me.
Well actually it's not.
It just shows the immense power society has to pressure people to conform to some near universal standard.
Society nearly demands you all be good little sheep, shop till you drop, stimulate the economy and keep people employed.
In exchange, you'll get some sort of warm inner glow - a feel good feeling.
Hogwash! I've always wanted to do a confidential Christmas poll - how many people do Christmas because they WANT to do Christmas, versus how many people do Christmas because they are EXPECTED to do Christmas.
Actually I suspect such polls have been done.
What I often do is just stand off to one side and people-watch doing their shopping thing in the glitzy stores.
That applies equally well to the supermarket 48 hours before the Big Day.
Many of the people I watch tend to look stressed out of their ever loving minds and look as far removed from having fun as it's possible to get.
Now clearly some people want to do Christmas, they have fun doing Christmas and enjoy themselves.
Some people get a buzz out of cooking and entertaining for the multitudes, and shopping and gift-giving and attending lots of Christmas parties, perhaps often making fools of themselves.
Then I wonder too how many people get fired or disciplined when attending the near mandatory office party by performing unprofessional hi-jinks while under the influence.
But I'd wager dimes to donuts that a reasonable minority of the population, maybe more, do Christmas because people (friends, neighbours, relations) as well as society in general put so much pressure on them that they feel they have no choice in the matter.
You WILL do Christmas or be a social pariah.
Perhaps such people desperately try to convince themselves they are having fun and experiencing the entire positive expectations via the hype that all the stores, ads, etc.
constantly pummel you with for those weeks on end leading up to the Big Day.
By the time the Big Day or thereabouts actually arrives, some people are so stressed, expectations so dashed, tempers so frayed, that perhaps coupled with too much Christmas spirits, that domestic and related violence peaks, as I'm sure statistics will bear me out.
That's probably even truer in the Northern Hemisphere where the odds are greater that people will be confined indoors due to the winter weather.
For such consequences to follow on from such a phoney commercialised occasion that has about as much resemblance to reality as a hologram has to being a real solid object staggers the imagination - if you really stop and think about it.
Christmas is even phonier Down Under in Oz (Australia - and the Southern Hemisphere in general where it's high summer).
I mean, when the air conditioners and fans are going full tilt, how can you really relate to Santa rugged up like a polar bear, reindeer, sleighs, artificial snow, fake evergreens, and traditional piping hot Christmas meals all when it's hotter than Hades outside! The negative side is that whole forests must be being chopped down to provide the paper for the pamphlets that clog your mailbox, or appear as the ads in your magazines and newspapers that pressure you to spend, spend, spend; buy, buy, buy.
If you don't spend and buy you won't be happy; you'll be a scrooge; you'll be an outcast! Never mind the statistics that show that a good third of all gifts are unwanted and unused.
You just gotta do your bit to help keep the economy chugging along and keep retail, wholesale, etc.
people in jobs.
That's your job! More forests are no doubt consumed (along with other resources) for all those billions of Christmas cards and millions of rolls of wrapping paper.
Of course, I guess in this environmentally-aware age much of the brochures, ads, cards and wrapping paper are ultimately recycled.
Still, it seems to be way in excess of what's really necessary (as if any of this really is).
By now it should come as no surprise that I don't do Christmas - no cards, no gifts, no guests, no muss, no fuss, no stress, no dieting after-the-fact, and best of all, no Christmas bills to have to pay.
So make a New Year's Resolution - if you don't want to do Christmas, don't and damn the consequences.
Jump off the bandwagon.
Avoid the unnecessary stress, and bills, even if you can't escape from the hype, the commercialism, and the music, that never ending audio intrusion of Christmas songs that's just everywhere.
The Christmas season hits the ludicrous stage when I can't even do ordinary grocery shopping at the supermarket without being bombarded with Christmas music for over one-twelfth of the year; I can't walk into my local club without being visually assaulted by dozens of very fake looking trees brimming with flashing multicoloured lights and enough tinsel on display to choke a T-Rex.
Multiply the clubs and the stores with that music; shops, etc.
with those gaudy Christmas displays, dozens, correction, hundreds of times over - you just can't escape.
I don't think I should have to be subjected to such an ever-present and intense barrage of all things Christmas related for weeks and weeks on end.
You know Christmas has gotten more than just a bit out of control when the stores start putting up the Christmas displays and propaganda by early November if not mid to late October.
If late October, that's one-sixth of an entire year you're put under pressure and reminded of your annual duty.
Who needs it? I mean popular magazines at this time of year are full of articles on 'how to survive Christmas'.
Why should such advice be necessary in the first place? Why people voluntarily subject themselves to this annual madness, the torture of stress and bills and preparations and writing cards and hyping up their positive expectations for a wonderful time that nearly always tends to be way out of actual reach is quite beyond me.
Well actually it's not.
It just shows the immense power society has to pressure people to conform to some near universal standard.
Society nearly demands you all be good little sheep, shop till you drop, stimulate the economy and keep people employed.
In exchange, you'll get some sort of warm inner glow - a feel good feeling.
Hogwash! I've always wanted to do a confidential Christmas poll - how many people do Christmas because they WANT to do Christmas, versus how many people do Christmas because they are EXPECTED to do Christmas.
Actually I suspect such polls have been done.
What I often do is just stand off to one side and people-watch doing their shopping thing in the glitzy stores.
That applies equally well to the supermarket 48 hours before the Big Day.
Many of the people I watch tend to look stressed out of their ever loving minds and look as far removed from having fun as it's possible to get.
Now clearly some people want to do Christmas, they have fun doing Christmas and enjoy themselves.
Some people get a buzz out of cooking and entertaining for the multitudes, and shopping and gift-giving and attending lots of Christmas parties, perhaps often making fools of themselves.
Then I wonder too how many people get fired or disciplined when attending the near mandatory office party by performing unprofessional hi-jinks while under the influence.
But I'd wager dimes to donuts that a reasonable minority of the population, maybe more, do Christmas because people (friends, neighbours, relations) as well as society in general put so much pressure on them that they feel they have no choice in the matter.
You WILL do Christmas or be a social pariah.
Perhaps such people desperately try to convince themselves they are having fun and experiencing the entire positive expectations via the hype that all the stores, ads, etc.
constantly pummel you with for those weeks on end leading up to the Big Day.
By the time the Big Day or thereabouts actually arrives, some people are so stressed, expectations so dashed, tempers so frayed, that perhaps coupled with too much Christmas spirits, that domestic and related violence peaks, as I'm sure statistics will bear me out.
That's probably even truer in the Northern Hemisphere where the odds are greater that people will be confined indoors due to the winter weather.
For such consequences to follow on from such a phoney commercialised occasion that has about as much resemblance to reality as a hologram has to being a real solid object staggers the imagination - if you really stop and think about it.
Christmas is even phonier Down Under in Oz (Australia - and the Southern Hemisphere in general where it's high summer).
I mean, when the air conditioners and fans are going full tilt, how can you really relate to Santa rugged up like a polar bear, reindeer, sleighs, artificial snow, fake evergreens, and traditional piping hot Christmas meals all when it's hotter than Hades outside! The negative side is that whole forests must be being chopped down to provide the paper for the pamphlets that clog your mailbox, or appear as the ads in your magazines and newspapers that pressure you to spend, spend, spend; buy, buy, buy.
If you don't spend and buy you won't be happy; you'll be a scrooge; you'll be an outcast! Never mind the statistics that show that a good third of all gifts are unwanted and unused.
You just gotta do your bit to help keep the economy chugging along and keep retail, wholesale, etc.
people in jobs.
That's your job! More forests are no doubt consumed (along with other resources) for all those billions of Christmas cards and millions of rolls of wrapping paper.
Of course, I guess in this environmentally-aware age much of the brochures, ads, cards and wrapping paper are ultimately recycled.
Still, it seems to be way in excess of what's really necessary (as if any of this really is).
By now it should come as no surprise that I don't do Christmas - no cards, no gifts, no guests, no muss, no fuss, no stress, no dieting after-the-fact, and best of all, no Christmas bills to have to pay.
So make a New Year's Resolution - if you don't want to do Christmas, don't and damn the consequences.
Jump off the bandwagon.
Avoid the unnecessary stress, and bills, even if you can't escape from the hype, the commercialism, and the music, that never ending audio intrusion of Christmas songs that's just everywhere.
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