Why I don’t celebrate Christmas
Over the past few years, I haven’t been Christmas’s biggest fan. I hate that people celebrate the holiday without embracing its religious backgound (not that I do, but still). Christmas is, clearly, a religious holiday… yet almost every person in America feels the need to go into credit card debt every year, failing to realize that they are supposed to be celebrating the birth of Jesus - NOT THE BIRTH OF PLASTIC. A person I agree with very strongly once said:
The reasons I’ve rejected Christmas are economic, environmental, social and religious. The fact is, Christmas today has become a thoroughly illiberal event, at odds with everything that liberals stand for.
I can totally understand the point of Christmas if you are a Christian and go to church on a regular basis. It makes sense to celebrate the birth of Jesus. What I never understood was how Christmas got transformed from Jesus’s birthday to the one day a year where we have to buy every single person we know a fucking gift. I don’t know Jesus, nor do I celebrate his life, so I don’t feel the need to participate in Christmas. Including almost all shopping between the day after Thanksgiving and New Years.
I feel that holidays should have a bit of integrity. When I was little, I believed in Santa and that was the sole reason for celebrating Christmas. As I got older and it became clearer to me that Santa did not exist, I started wondering what the hell Christmas was about. The minute I found out that I was supposed to be celebrating the birth of JESUS (the son of a God that I don’t worship or believe in) I stopped participating in the holiday. Which is why it angers me so much to see white trash such as Britney Spears pimping out her son’s nursery for his first Christmas (which he will never remember). I highly doubt she attends church, or believes in God. If she did, she wouldn’t have married K Fed (more to the point, if there was a God, people like K Fed and George Bush would not exist).
For most Americans, Christmas is about spending money and getting presents. The spiritual (or childhood) meaning of the holiday is lost on them. All they care about is getting a good parking spot at the mall and grabbing that last sweater in their daughter’s size so she can look just like Paris Hilton… except about 8 sizes larger.
To be honest, I could write a novel on why I hate Christmas. The shoppers, the soccer moms, the food, and probably about 10,000 more things. But I think I’ll stop here so you don’t think I’m the devil more than you already do.
I wonder when Americans will wake up and realize that the Christmas they’ve been celebrating for decades - centuries - is a gross misrepresentation of the holiday’s true meaning and religious background.