Bah, humbug!

People are funny about their holidays. The man friend is at wit’s end hearing the now-ritual complaint from customers during their over-the-counter small talk about how stressed they are with holiday preparations.

How long they’ve been shopping.

How tired of shopping they are.

How crowded the stores were.

How they still have so much to do before Christmas.

It is, of course, considered impolite to point out that all of this stress is both voluntary and self-induced, and could easily be avoided. He’s already dismayed one too many strangers by truthfully answering last month’s How was your Thanksgiving? chitchat. (Apparently, spending Turkey Day alone, sans gluttony, drunkenness, family drama, or the Macy’s parade–and liking it–is nigh unto heretical and might even be illegal in several states.) He’s pretty adept at dodging the usual Christmas questions, giving honest yet inoffensive answers to the usual questions:

Nope, got no shopping left (ignoring that there never was any shopping to start with).

Yep, sure do have holiday plans (they look a lot like his Thanksgiving plans, and involve not a whit of tree, wrapping paper, gifts, ham, carols, lights, extended family, Secret Santas, or chestnut roasting. Okay, maybe ham, but the rest of it is right out).

Sure, I’m looking forward to Christmas (because it’s one of only two days in the entire year that he’s guaranteed a day off).

It’s a funny little game to have to play, but you find that you really do have to play it, or risk inducing an entirely disproportionate level of indignation and disapproval from complete strangers. Tell someone in an utterly neutral, non-confrontational tone that you don’t do Christmas, and their immediate reaction (after they determine that you’re not simply of another religious persuasion) is get their hackles up. It’s astonishing how consistently this happens. I can only surmise that folks are so defensive of their consumer orgy and its attendant stresses because they realize, at least on some level, how utterly unnecessary it all is, and perhaps feel a little ashamed to keep perpetuating it, year after year.

I know at this point that I’m supposed to say something like, “Far be it from me to judge others” and give the masses a pass on their American-style, super-sized Christmas because it’s ostensibly about joy and peace and whatnot, but I find I’m losing my social filter as I get older, so instead I’ll say a few other things:

I absolutely don’t approve of the viral frenzy that induces otherwise rational people to descend like locusts upon any establishment that has ever used the word “doorbuster” in its advertising.

I don’t approve of bartering small electronics and expensive toys for children’s approval.

I don’t approve of wasting more food than most of the world’s citizens see in a year, just because you thought your table should look like that picture you saw in Martha Stewart’s Guide to Conspicuous Consumption for Upwardly Mobile White People.

I don’t approve of buying shit for people you barely know simply because spending money on someone is the only way you’ve learned to express like, love, neighborliness, you-work-in-the-next-cubicle-ness, we’re-related-by-marriage-ness, or I-can’t-even-remember-how-you-got-on-my-Christmas-list-but-it-might-be-rude-to-cross-you-off-ness. This behavior merely encourages the proliferation of themed giftboxes containing low-grade cocoa, novelty coffee mugs, plastic ornaments, and potpourri that will end up scenting the interior of a city-issued trash barrel.

I don’t approve of the small mountains of trash lining the curb the week after The Most Wonderful Time Of The Year has passed.

I also recognize that my approval is utterly irrelevant to most other people.

But just because I can be crotchety and judgmental, don’t have a tree, bought no gifts this year, didn’t string lights on anything, and disavow that Jesus Christ was any more divine than you or I doesn’t mean I’m a completely hopeless misanthrope. Here’s what I do approve:

Luminarias, and any lights that don’t blink
Judy Garland singing Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas
Gifts given at any time of year, if given out of no sense of obligation
The Rudolph special
Hanging heirloom ornaments, and retelling their stories
Pushing cloves into oranges, scenting the whole house
The shadows the tree lights make on the ceiling, filtered through the branches
Peace on Earth, when it’s more than just a phrase on a card
A crackling fire, warming the ones I love
A mug of tea, snow on the ground, and the smell of evergreen
Paperwhites
Dance of the Sugar Plum Fairy and this classic:

See, I really am just a sap in surly clothing.