creepy caroling

Christmas music blared overhead and lulled into a false sense of security and joy, I began to sing along with the song, "We wish you a Merry Christmas..."

In the Spring the city introduced me to the joys of public singing. This was different. As I passed a woman she was also singing along.

I passed a couple who was singing the lyrics together.

And then I got a little nauseous.

Not that I don't love my fellow man, but weird. I mean it would have been cooler if it was a Bright Eyes song like "Something Vague" and I just happened to hear it on the radio and started singing along and knowing all the lyrics and then someone at the cafe would also hear it and sing along... the likelihood of that happening is nil.

I started thinking about how we all have this collective consciousness and Christmas songs, regardless of how you feel about the celebration of Christmas, these songs are all etched into our memories, which is weirder still because they only become increasingly played for a six week period once a year.

Then I started thinking about Christmas.

One of my favorite jokes about Christmas was on Futurama when Fry finds out that Christmas has been boiled down to Xmas. Of course, even though it's supposed to take place in the future, it's clever satire for the way America has consumerized and secularized a religious holiday.

As I get older, the thrill of presents has faded. I still receive some, and in only recent years has it seriously dwindled; this year I have asked for no gifts and I was last in the line of the four siblings to say so. My mother has shifted all of her focus from us kids to her grandkids, which I suppose is far better than trying to please and excite a bunch of twenty-somethings and a thirty year-old with gifts they will probably sneer at as they open them.

My most successful gifting moment was the birthday books and even that got screwed up a bit; someone gave me a book that simply looked good and was not their favorite and I ended up reading a lot of quirky fiction that I would never read willingly. I am not a fan of gift cards and find that no one really knows what else to give me. So I tell them not to get me anything.

If I had a choice in the matter, I would not really participate in Christmas or Xmas at all. My favorite thing about it is that people act nicer to each other. I wish they could be that way all year. I hate the pressure to buy and give gifts, I hate feeling like my mom has a big credit card bill to pay off for the next couple months and I also hate how ubiquitous it is, how absolutely dominating it is as a cultural phenomenon. I can't imagine what it is like to be any other religion celebrating a holiday and having it shoved aside for some fat guy in a red suit with a shitload of presents.

What usually happens every year is that I complain about it until the week before and then I start to get excited. I start to participate a little. Last year I bought everyone thrift store presents. I figure I will contribute my consumerism in a little different way. For some reason, kids books or toys at thrift stores are always either broken or look like seething germ factories, so I buy their stuff new. I never buy them the thing they most want (I leave that up to the parents) but I hear that the things I get them are cherished more than the video games or mp3 players.

And even though the things that others give me are never quite what I need or what, I try to incorporate them into my life or pass them on to someone that can.

Anyway, bah humbugging over.