So. My shtick for the last few decades has been that I hate Christmas carols–except one. I’ll get to that one later, but it’s not competely true–that I hate Christmas carols, I mean. What is more accurate is that I don’t like the schlocky versions that seem to saturate the airwaves in the months (months!) leading up to Christmas. It’s as if the powers that be chose the worst possible versions and said, “Yes, let’s play these repeatedly in the mall over and over and over again.”
Things got much better once I stopped watching TV (no commercials) and stopped listening to the radio (no ads). I haven’t been to a mall except to eat in over a decade as well, so that helps. The local stations that play Christmas music all December long? No longer on my presets in my car. That’s the only time I listen to the radio, by the way. When I cut out the listening by 95%, it made it so much more tolerable.
It also helped that I have continued my journey with Christianity. I touched on the hatred I had for Christianity in this post from two days ago. I was raised fundie Evangelical Christian with very sexist tenets. A girl who had sex outside of marriage was condemned to hell. And, yes, specifically the girl because she was a harlot, a tramp, and an evil temptress/seductress. It was ridiculous to the point where our youth pastor (not Taiwanese, which was interesting at a Taiwanese church) said that it was better to not kiss before you got married because kissing led to sex. This was before I had dated anyone, but even a sheltered naive girl like me could tell that was utter bullshit. Or rather, that there were many steps between kissing and sex. It wasn’t as if you kissed someone and then suddenly their penis was inside you. Come on!
Once I realized that the church had been lying to me all those years (and being deeply sexist), I reacted with extreme anger. I could not bear the mention of Christianity or that god, which was hard because that was when my mother was at her most religious. I was so angry at God (with a capital G). Even though if He existed, it most certainly wasn’t His fault that His followers were being such assholes in His name. But that’s what happens when you’re abused–you get angry. Which is a healthy response!
Then, as the years went by, the anger slipped away. The further I got from the religion, the more I just…let it go. I will say that Taiji helped tremendously, but I put down that burden. I did not forgive* God (because I did not believe in him) or the religion (because it’s still trash to me–the version I was forced to ‘believe’ in), but I no longer felt the searing hatred or anger I had in the past.
For a decade or so, I just felt studiedly indifference to it. With a small amount of anger in the back of my mind. Again, it was Taiji that helped soothe the savage beast within. I was able to say, hey, it’s not for me, but whatever. I still hated Christmas during that time, but that was more because of the crass commercialism than the Christianity aspect.