Tis the season.
The Christmas music CDs and greeting cards on on the racks in the Rite Aid. The lights are going up at Melon Park along Smithfield Street. Construction has begun on the larger-than-life-sized nativity scene at USX Plaza. I haven't even passed out Halloween candy yet and already it's the Christmas season.
How much of this is faith and how much is capitalism? It's not that
difficult to figure that out. No other holiday, Christian or otherwise, has a two month lead-in. No other holiday generates over $400 Billion in retail sales, most of which being toys, games and other gifts that have nothing to do with the celebration of Jesus's birthday.
Christmas is no longer a Christian holiday. It's a consumerist holiday. And the hypocracy of it all annoys the shit out of me.
Actually, what annoys me the most about the two month long holiday season is the music. The incessant Christmas music. Thankfully, I know own an iPod. I have already started using it as a way of isolating myself from the world around me. I typically spend my entire lunch with the headphones on so I don't have to hear the Muzak that plays in restaurants and businesses in town. Also, the distraction allows me to not go over the unpleasantness of work during lunch.
That gets saved for the ride home.
2 comments:
Bah hum-bug?
Christmas music only comes around once a year, for less than eight weeks. Why be such a grinch about it all? It is the most wonderful time of the year.
When the days get shorter and the nights get colder, this sime of year lights up with festive cheer - carols, lights, family and friends.
There's no need to be a Grinch about it all. Preparing for Christmas and the holiday season takes time. The lights and the nativity scene don't go up overnight, ya know.
Besides, Light-Up Night isn't too far away.
So, upload some Christmas tunes to your iPod and celebrate the season!
And on January 1, go back to being a Grinch again for 11 more months.
"And then! Oh, the noise! Oh, the noise! Noise! Noise! Noise! That's one thing he hated! The NOISE! NOISE! NOISE! NOISE!"
Seuss speculated that the Grinch hated Christmas because "his head wasn't screwed on quite right", "that his shoes were to tight" or that "his heart was two sizes too small."
For me, it's simple and no mystery. Being an athiest, I would prefer not to have anything to do with Christmas. Yet, for the next two months there will be no escape. It will assault my senses on every city street, on radio and television, in any store I go into.
And this whole so-called "most wonderful time of the year" continuously declares how much of an outsider I am. How I am a distrusted minority. Even after all the thievery the Grinch did, he was still invited to carve the roast beast. Me? Well, George W. said it this way:
"No, I don't know that atheists should be considered as citizens, nor should they be considered as patriots. This is one nation under God."
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