When I was in ninth or tenth grade, I wrote an opinion editorial (“op-ed” in the biz) about how Christmas had become so commercialized. This was over thirty-five years ago, and I was such a naive child back then. I thought I had seen the height of consumerism, but I had seen nothing yet.
I loved Christmas as a kid, of course, because I got presents. That was it. No other reason. Just the presents. My brother and I would snoop around to find them before Chrismas. We also found things I’d rather not know existed, but that’s the danger of snooping.
Christmas was oddly disappointing, though, even back then. Well, not oddly. It makes sense when you think about it. When you’re a little kid, a year is such a big chunk of your life. It takes forever to get from one Christmas to another.
Then, Christmas lasted a couple hours an was over for another year. Even if you got everything you wanted for Christmas, there was still the yawning emptiness afterwards because material goods did not fulfill you permanently. This was obvious–now. Not to a little kid who waited all year to get whatever the toy of the year was. To be honest, I didn’t even remember what I got for presents. I knew they were what I asked for or what my mother would think a girl would want (if it was the latter, then it wasn’t what I wanted). I didn’t really remember.
What I did remember was one year, there was nothing in my stocking. I told my mother about it, and she told me to go back to bed. Fifteen minutes later, she called me to the stocking (and my brother, too, probably) and there were things in it. That was my first inkling that Santa wasn’t real.
Then, I started hating Christmas. There were two reasons for this. One, my fractious relationship with Christianity. I left it when I was twenty and had sex for the first time. I didn’t really believe before that, but I tried so hard. But my mother’s particular brand of hardcore fundie evangelical Christianity never sat well with me–especially the terrible sexism of it all.
When I realized they were lying about sex (that premarital sex was the worst thing you could do and would cast your soul into eternal hell), there was no going back. When someone llies to you that consistantly, persistantly, and without remorse, all the trust was gone.
I also hated Christmas because it was so ever-present starting with after Halloween. there was a brief pause for Thanksgiving, and then it went on and on and on until Christmas. There is a local station that plays endless Christmas songs all through December.
When I used to be more into social media, I would post anti-Christmas posts in December on my Facebook wall. Now, let me be clear. I did not go on other people’s walls and piss on ther parade about Christmas. I only put my anti-Christmas diatribes on my own wall. I also used Grumpy Cat dissing Christmas as my profile pic.
In other words, my Facebook followers would see it. If they did not like it, they could block me or unfollow me for December. One of my Facebook friends complained on her wall about anti-Christmas people harshing her high. She was a friend in real life and she insisted on calling my cellphone and singing a Christmas ditty in my VM.
Another Facebook friend did not like that I talkad about how much I loved snow every winter. Why is that my problem? I can put whatever I want on my wall. You don’t like it, fucking block me. I would not be so heated about it except for the fact that I don’t talk about this shit on the regular. I know that most people love Christmas, but hate winter, so I keep that shit to myself. I may say that I don’t do Christmas, but I don’t go on and on about my hatred.
In the past decade or so, my hatred has slowly subsided. It helps that I don’t listen to the radio any longer, and I don’t watch TV. That means I don’t have to hear the music and I don’t have to see the saccharine/horrifying/cash-grab commercials. I have gone at length about those as well (the terrible Christmas commercials and how they try to guilt you into buying expensive shit for your loved ones).
Also, I really only bought presents for a few friends and my niblings (plus my bestie’s kid). But I would go to my brother’s celebration, which included his (then) in-laws. I remember one Christmas, I did not get anything from anyone. I normally wouldn’t mind, but it was an hour or two of everyone else getting gifts (because the in-laws brought gifts for everyone but me), but me. It didn’t feel good, I’ll admit. Of course my brother didn’t buy me anything because he wouldn’t think of it. In part because he was a dude and in part because he was autistic. I will say that my ex-SIL must have felt bad about it because she gave me a Vikings bear a few weeks later. Which was surprisingly sweet of her. I wasn’t being snide, by the way. It was really sweet; I just wouldn’t have expected it from her.
And, no, I don’t give gifts to get them. But I do note when it’s completely unequal. I was raised a girl/woman, which meant that it was hammered into my brain that I was supposed to care about and for others without asking/expecting anything in return.
Nope. Not going to do that any longer. I’m not going to be keeping tabs or expect one-to-one, but there’s nothing wrong with wanting things to be reciprocal. In fact, those who say you should not be keeping track are usually the ones who don’t give as much as they get.I am pretty generous so I would not even notice until the imbalance was severe. But then, once I realized it, I was done. That’s not a good thing, mind, but it was the way I rolled.
I’m done for today. I will write more tomorrow.