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10 Dec 2008, 2:33 am / Full of Life
Last year (if some of you can remember), I "gushed" over the hypocrisy of the Christmas season. This year, I'm feeling like that's already expected of me. And besides, with the current disdain for this season amongst today's youth, I'd feel like I'm simply "following" the crowd if I did what I did last year. So this year won't be so cynical. That being said, I'll get right out and say it: I love Christmas.
Well, now that I said that, it's time to get cynical. (Remember: This isn't as bad as last year's.) So it's that time again when the global economy fattens up a little bit, because everyone in the world is up and about spending something on something. Either they spend their time or their money... or both... on something they want to give someone else. A heart-felt gesture, they say. Children spending what money they have buying little things for mommy and daddy; writing/drawing up little Christmas cards. Changing the meaning of Christmas from whatever it was in days of yore to what it is now: a competition for the place in the family as the parents' favorite child.
Purists argue that the true spirit of Christmas is the kindness-spreading, the love-sharing. The spreading and sharing of "True Christian Values"... like... torturing people until they confess to sins they never committed. Or the condemnation and persecution of those who choose to place their faith in some other idiocy - pardon, ideology - and/or those who choose not to place their faith in some other... ideology.
Yes, it's that time when we spend our days well-wishing every other passer-by, and hating/ignoring every person in between just because the people you greeted ignored you. The time of year where dads will shoot each other to death over an item cheap at half the price. (To those not in the know, I'm talking about the oh-so-responsible dads who shot each other just because their wives couldn't agree on which one gets to buy the Nintendo Wii. Awesome job, Nintendo, I always knew you'd drive men to kill each other someday.) The time of year when everyone curses the very commercialization of such a sacred (see Purist statement above) tradition; damns every utterance of "Merry Christmas"; and completely betrays the very point of tolerance-teaching that was, or perhaps should have been, the foundation of ideologies the world over. It used to be about gratitude, but November has stolen that from this month.
No, it's all about the big "C" word. Consumption. Coast to coast, country to country, continent to continent (Guess what - those are all C-words, too) a gigantic land mass upon which we have built everything we could ever imagine all to wet ourselves in that juicy C-word. Still "Consumption", mind you.
Going back a little bit, I mentioned people choosing one faith over the other, or none at all. Yes, it's the time of year where we are happy for whatever faith we've chosen. We celebrate a country that so loved us that it gave us ten unalienable rights. Ten. Count them. Sure, the tenth one says that there can be no catalog of rights because there are so many that men have been given by God... but that's just fancy talk for "We decide what rights you get, if any at all". Yes, Christmas time is money time. Money spent and money stolen... earned, I mean.
It's when all the too-happy-to-be-happy people stand around just waiting for someone to breathe in their direction so they can sue them for invading their privacy. When this country shows us that it loves us so much, it'll give us trials and award people with our money (with a sum for its own) just because we exercised our supposed God-given rights. Funny, I never knew God would give rights to only some people, and leave out the rest. Wait... I suppose Science just called it Natural Selection.
I'm getting too far from the point, aren't I? Well, to end this. I would like wish everyone a Merry Christmas (sue me). And that I hope the time they get away from work is spent well: with their families and friends. See? I told you it wouldn't be as cynical as last year's.
Always,
Mephistopheles
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