Concept4Banner1024 The Plural of Apocalypse: November 2007

 Friday, November 30, 2007

It's the Most Horrific Time of the Year

Christmas. Fuck.

Don’t get me wrong. I like the idea of Christmas, the getting together of friends and family to eat excessively and give each other gifts cos some teenaged mother had a baby 2,000+ years ago. The idea of good will and good cheer and familiar drunkenness and the iconization of a fat man in a red suit (he’s like a golden calf, only he wears red and is hairy) are just fine by me. Conceptually it’s fine. The actuality is not so much.

It started in September, the talk of Christmas. Then on November 1st, the Halloween costumes weren’t even put away yet and already Christmas music had taken over a station on the radio. Suddenly it appeared that Thanksgiving had been lumped together with Halloween in the décor department, and now that Halloween was over, clearly it was time to stock the shelves with trees and ribbons and wraps and ornament and cards! (Don’t forget many smallish animatronic toys which annoyingly play some sort of carol of yore but with different words, to further destroy the remains of Christmas past)

When I was younger there was this whole month in between Halloween and Christmas, apparently that whole month has been reduced to a few hours in the wee hours of All Saints Day. Fuck me. I remember clearly that at some point holidays went like this: Halloween, Deer Hunting (a general holiday in WI), Thanksgiving, then Christmas. Now I think it looks like this Hallowgiving, Hunting, Christmas. An entire holiday was overlooked in order to get that Christmas shit on the shelves and into consumers homes even sooner!

2 weeks ago, nearly a week before Thanksgiving, Nick called me in a near panic at 6:15 in the am (I was still awake too, so it’s not like this was a real emergency) to tell me that in the 10 hours we had spent together, somehow downtown Wausau was converted from a quaint hellhole into a quaint hellhole that Christmas vomited all over. It was decided that from now on, side roads were the only way to avoid this treachery. Turkey had not yet been consumed, but there was a goddamned Christmas tree in the square and tinsel and lights on the street lights.

Now it is the official Christmas season and you know what? I’m already all Christmassed out. They played the Grinch earlier this week. IT’S NOT EVEN DECEMBER IN CASE NO ONE GOT THE MEMO, OR OWNS A CALENDAR, SHIT YOUR CELL PHONE AND CRACK BERRIES HAVE CALENDARS HOW CAN NO ONE REALIZE IT IS NOT DECEMBER YET??????????????????

What is the world coming to? What is wrong with people? On top of it, even though it’s the spirit of giving, it seems to have been reduced to the season of Road Rage, Cart Rage, pushing, shoving, being rude and thinking that for some reason one’s own need to get their hands on the latest tickle me bullshit is more important than anyone else’s right to shop. I am actually scared to drive near the shopping here. Mostly cos I am pretty sure someone is going to take out my car on their way to the Best Buy to pick up the Beverly Hillbillies on DVD!

I am already sick of Christmas, I don’t want to put up my tree, or decorate my house, cards and gifts seem like a lot of work. I would just assume skip the whole thing cos you know what? Come December 26th already talk will turn to “starting next year’s Christmas shopping early!” I am generally not a “fuck Christmas” kind of person. I usually take a day off of work to put up the tree and decorate it and enjoy it. This year it sort of nauseates me. I even offered my tree to Wendi cos she is having a Christmas at her house and my tree works well in an apartment, what with it being all skinny and prelit.

I keep thinking I need to go out to the garage and find the Rubbermaid with the cards in it, so I can start filling them out. I decided I would put up my small tinsel tree cos if I put no decorations up and my parents stop by I will be chastised and made to feel a fool. Mostly I hope if they show up that they will stock me with some fire wood, and not make me feel crappy about my messy apartment or lack of Christmas spirit. The tinsel tree though is so weak it can not hold lights, thus it’s not even like a bright cheerful Christmas extravaganza.

I’ve half heartedly started my Christmas shopping but the gifts are so generic this year they hardly feel personal. I am usually a damn fine gift giver, paying attention all year to the tiniest mentions so that come Christmas I can be all “Surprise! Someone listened to you! I am the bestest ever!” but this year I just don’t care. I even tried to get out of gift giving with A2 cos I have no idea what to get her (at all, seriously, how much alcoholism paraphernalia and serial killer shit can one person really need?), at least K is the kind of person I can buy something for that I want, cos she probably wants it too. The rest of the gifts are so scattered and without theme or anything that I don’t know why I’m bothering. I am still looking forward to the wrapping, but that’s my favorite part of any gift giving I do.

I am not really looking forward to receiving any gifts! I have too much shit already! I provided my mother with a short, specific list of shit I want for Christmas, what I’ll get is 1-4 things off that list and a bunch of shit she thinks I need. The woman has no concept of me living in an apartment, already having a garage and storage unit full of shit, and having no more room left for any additional shit. I am shit out of room.

So overall this year, I’d like to skip Christmas. Granted this means I am pushed ever closer to the big 29 year old birthday which I am looking forward to about as much as a colonoscopy. But at least I wouldn’t have to put up with bell-ringers, going broke, and wondering why as it inches closer to the actual holiday all the TV programming stops being about Christmas and you can’t find a Christmas show or movie on to save your soul. Bah Humbug!