Reasons why I hate Christmas
I am the Grinch. Anyone who's been anywhere near me this festive season will be more than aware of this.
Edit - reading this back, it's a bit depressing and negative - so let me start by saying as I kid I used to enjoy the excitement - especially when I believed in Santa and would try and spot him out of my bedroom window. (I discovered Santa wasn't real when I spotted a new toy in mum's car that I then saw a couple of days later in my brother's stocking, and put two and two together). Mum would (and still does) buy loads of goodies - turkish delight, cheese footballs (do they even exist any longer?), pringles, After Eights etc) and display them temptingly on the side board until we were allowed to open then on Christmas Eve - the restraint was tremendous. And because of where I currently work, Christmas is pretty sweet - this year in particular has seen December fly by in a haze of booze, mince pies, creativity, and 3pm finishes topped off with a pretty opulent meat feast at Barbecoa courtesy of my fantastic boss. (on the day we went, there was a fire evacuation and we all got chucked out for half an hour. We were the only ones who returned as everyone else legged it, so they gave us 50% off the bill which was rather nice of them).
However, as I have grown up, I have developed several aversions to Christmas:
- I feel like I HAVE to enjoy it. Facebook's filled with family selfies with everyone in christmas onesies, statuses about people feeling 'blessed' at spending this special festive period with loved ones, movies all about happy special family time. I feel myself constantly comparing my christmas to that of what it "should" be, and mine never measures up. I am lucky enough to see my family fairly frequently, so spending christmas with them never feels special and I don't get that glowing, warm feeling inside my heart, that I feel like I should get.
- I don't particularly like receiving gifts. I feel uncomfortable receiving them, especially now that I am in the very fortunate financial position where I tend to buy myself whatever I want/need. I feel like I don't deserve anything and that the only reason I am receiving half of the stuff I get is because society dictates we should buy one another gifts for this set day. For the same reason, I don't particularly like buying gifts, I find it stressful as I would rather get someone a gift than means something, but for people who have everything, or for people you don't particularly know, what the hell do you get!? And that moment someone gives you a gift, and you realise with a sinking feeling that you didn't get them something because you didn't even consider the thought they'd get you anything, ...ahh the awkwardness.
- This brings me onto my next point - going to the shops at christmas time is horrendous. And shops shill the most awful stuff - take a look at the below, people actually buy shit like that! It is literally a packaged up plastic ball with nothing inside. What a total waste! That £7 could have bought a homeless person steak and chips from Wetherspoons, maybe a beer too.
Thanksgiving Black Friday (we're not even American folks, in case you hadn't noticed), and Boxing day sales now invoke scenes similar to that of people running away from zombies in The Walking Dead. People literally fighting over discounted goods they don't actually need makes me die a little inside.
- Christmas songs and decorations EVERYWHERE from the moment Halloween decorations are taken down. The same songs every year (bar the XFactor guaranteed to be a christmas number one without fail unless there's a social media campaign single). And that horrendous, patronising BandAid song that gets wheeled out without fail - yes I am pretty sure that people in Africa know it's Christmas time, Mr Geldolf. And they have snow in Africa. You pillock. As an aside, I HATE the way the entire continent of Africa gets tarred with the same brush - it has 54 nations (at the time of writing) across 11.7million square miles. You can fit Britain into Africa 120 times. Think how different the North and South of England are and multiply that on the scale of how large Africa is - different climates, languages, cultures, economies. It's not the large poverty, disease and drought stricken continent that Bob would like us to think it is.
Anyway, there are some of the reasons I hate Christmas. It was a magical time when I was a kid and I loved the nativity story, but it's not even really about Jesus anymore - people get excited about the Coca Cola van and Winter Wonderland.
I think when I have a family of my own I will probably enjoy Christmas again, but as a childless and single 20 something, it's a pretty pants day.*
*This post seems a bit depressing and negative, so I would like to point out that I am of course very grateful for everything I have - I am lucky to spend Christmas with my family and fortunate to be in the financial position to buy gifts, and of course am thankful for everything I received this year. Especially the bottle of tonic in my Christmas stocking. Now where's my gin?
Anyway, here's some photos to brighten up an otherwise self indulgent miserable post:
Edit - reading this back, it's a bit depressing and negative - so let me start by saying as I kid I used to enjoy the excitement - especially when I believed in Santa and would try and spot him out of my bedroom window. (I discovered Santa wasn't real when I spotted a new toy in mum's car that I then saw a couple of days later in my brother's stocking, and put two and two together). Mum would (and still does) buy loads of goodies - turkish delight, cheese footballs (do they even exist any longer?), pringles, After Eights etc) and display them temptingly on the side board until we were allowed to open then on Christmas Eve - the restraint was tremendous. And because of where I currently work, Christmas is pretty sweet - this year in particular has seen December fly by in a haze of booze, mince pies, creativity, and 3pm finishes topped off with a pretty opulent meat feast at Barbecoa courtesy of my fantastic boss. (on the day we went, there was a fire evacuation and we all got chucked out for half an hour. We were the only ones who returned as everyone else legged it, so they gave us 50% off the bill which was rather nice of them).
However, as I have grown up, I have developed several aversions to Christmas:
- I feel like I HAVE to enjoy it. Facebook's filled with family selfies with everyone in christmas onesies, statuses about people feeling 'blessed' at spending this special festive period with loved ones, movies all about happy special family time. I feel myself constantly comparing my christmas to that of what it "should" be, and mine never measures up. I am lucky enough to see my family fairly frequently, so spending christmas with them never feels special and I don't get that glowing, warm feeling inside my heart, that I feel like I should get.
- I don't particularly like receiving gifts. I feel uncomfortable receiving them, especially now that I am in the very fortunate financial position where I tend to buy myself whatever I want/need. I feel like I don't deserve anything and that the only reason I am receiving half of the stuff I get is because society dictates we should buy one another gifts for this set day. For the same reason, I don't particularly like buying gifts, I find it stressful as I would rather get someone a gift than means something, but for people who have everything, or for people you don't particularly know, what the hell do you get!? And that moment someone gives you a gift, and you realise with a sinking feeling that you didn't get them something because you didn't even consider the thought they'd get you anything, ...ahh the awkwardness.
- This brings me onto my next point - going to the shops at christmas time is horrendous. And shops shill the most awful stuff - take a look at the below, people actually buy shit like that! It is literally a packaged up plastic ball with nothing inside. What a total waste! That £7 could have bought a homeless person steak and chips from Wetherspoons, maybe a beer too.
Thanksgiving Black Friday (we're not even American folks, in case you hadn't noticed), and Boxing day sales now invoke scenes similar to that of people running away from zombies in The Walking Dead. People literally fighting over discounted goods they don't actually need makes me die a little inside.
- Christmas songs and decorations EVERYWHERE from the moment Halloween decorations are taken down. The same songs every year (bar the XFactor guaranteed to be a christmas number one without fail unless there's a social media campaign single). And that horrendous, patronising BandAid song that gets wheeled out without fail - yes I am pretty sure that people in Africa know it's Christmas time, Mr Geldolf. And they have snow in Africa. You pillock. As an aside, I HATE the way the entire continent of Africa gets tarred with the same brush - it has 54 nations (at the time of writing) across 11.7million square miles. You can fit Britain into Africa 120 times. Think how different the North and South of England are and multiply that on the scale of how large Africa is - different climates, languages, cultures, economies. It's not the large poverty, disease and drought stricken continent that Bob would like us to think it is.
Anyway, there are some of the reasons I hate Christmas. It was a magical time when I was a kid and I loved the nativity story, but it's not even really about Jesus anymore - people get excited about the Coca Cola van and Winter Wonderland.
I think when I have a family of my own I will probably enjoy Christmas again, but as a childless and single 20 something, it's a pretty pants day.*
*This post seems a bit depressing and negative, so I would like to point out that I am of course very grateful for everything I have - I am lucky to spend Christmas with my family and fortunate to be in the financial position to buy gifts, and of course am thankful for everything I received this year. Especially the bottle of tonic in my Christmas stocking. Now where's my gin?
Anyway, here's some photos to brighten up an otherwise self indulgent miserable post:
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| feeding squirrels in St James' Park. Yes my gloves have raccoons on them. |
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| Rex wanted to be someone's present. Or suffocate himself. Not sure which. Maybe he hates Christmas as much as I do |
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| St Paul's as seen from Madison, One New Change |
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| Got my hair did. No one even noticed. sigh. |
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| Christmas day walk. Sky was beautiful |
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| Not sure he understand what camouflage is |
Heh, yep that could have been written by me - perhaps it's in the genes eh?
ReplyDeleteAw Nains! I totally sympathise. I don't like 'enforced fun' and there's so much pressure to have the perfect Christmas. And Ben really hates presents too. He hasn't even opened any of his! But I hope you had a nice dinner with your family. That's really the important thing, right?
ReplyDeleteYes Leanney, I think that's it, the pressure to enjoy oneself! And you go back to work and everyone asks "How was your Christmas" and you feel like you have to say it was great even though really it was pretty average. I am glad you can sympathise. But yes exactly - we had a lovely dinner, played a game after and then went for a quick walk - so I am very grateful that I have a happy, healthy family to spend it with :-) xxx
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