Christmas? Meh, It's Just A Day Intended To Prop Up Our Consumer Economy

I don't hate Christmas, it just doesn't register with me

I can feel it now the way a buzzard can smell carrion from miles away. The dreaded season is here, even if the commercials started long ago. The ads feature beautiful people wearing violently colorful sweaters and pouring fine liquor into glistening glassware. The stores where I buy my meager Hungry-Man frozen dinners now explode with silver and red in a gaudy celebration of unchecked, poinsettia-riddled capitalism.

I hate Christmas.

• Brian Broome

I should start by saying that I don’t hate Christmas. I’m just profoundly indifferent to it. First of all, I’m an atheist, so celebrating the birth of the baby Jesus is lost on me. Second, Christmas has been so utterly commercialized for so long that it’s lost any meaning it once had for me.

Don’t get me wrong; I’m not a curmudgeon who runs around with a perpetual scowl tattooed upon my visage from Thanksgiving to New Year’s Day. Likewise, I don’t begrudge anyone their enjoyment of the Christmas holiday. For me, though, I’d be delighted to let those five weeks slide by unnoticed and unadorned.

I’ve never been into celebrating Christmas as an adult. I was single for an entire decade, and there was no real reason for me to get excited over the holiday. Admittedly, some years it was a bit depressing, but I genuinely didn’t see a reason to get excited about a holiday that, in the end, would be no big deal for me.

Like many people, Erin and I tend to see our friends more over the holidays. I enjoy that, but as an introvert, I can only process so much goodwill among men. Eventually, I’m going to be wanting some peace and solitude. I can handle only so much good cheer, if you know what I mean.

So while I spend four weeks watching people get swept away by the Christmas spirit, I’m not feeling it. It doesn’t bother me that others enjoy Christmas; I just want to be left to celebrate it in my way, largely ignoring it. You can wonder if the holiday season depresses me, and I suppose on some level it does, but I’m not going to pretend I’m into it when I’m not. I enjoy the Christmas holiday because it means more soccer and football games are available for me to watch. Other than that, “the reason for the season” is lost on me.

I’ll leave it to others to love or hate Christmas. As for me, I’ve been profoundly indifferent to it for six decades and I see no reason to change now. So I’ll allow others to celebrate the season (or not) as they wish. I’ll take things as they come and try not to get too excited.

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