I hate Christmas. Some will call me a Grinch. Some will call me, “Scrooge,” but to that I say, “bah humbug.” Some will call me plain heartless. None of these reactions are new to me, because I have hated Christmas for quite some time.
I think Christmas is one of the most disappointing and insincere let-downs of the year. For a whole month, or for some people several months, you anticipate a celebration that is typically the exact same every year. Anticipating a wedding day or graduation for a long time makes sense to me – these are new milestones that embody something you have been working towards or dreaming of for a while and will brighten your future accordingly.
But what is new about Christmas? Nothing. Every December I’m forced to hear the same songs, endure the same talking points about my Christmas plans and wishlists and see the exact same decorations. It’s redundant. Red and green still do not look good together.
Then, the gift-giving. There’s something about feeling inclined to buy someone a gift that tends to make the gift less inspired or sincere and, usually, it shows. My grandmother has been buying me a Bible for years and to this day I have been struggling to find a use for my several “Bibles for Women,” which come in various shades of pink. But the cycle of spending a long time coming up with something to buy younger family members, seeing them open it and use it for about four minutes before tossing it to the side and moving on with their lives is a great representation of Christmas. It’s a big build-up, a few moments of excitement and then the realization that life moves on and nothing is different.
Social media, unsurprisingly, makes everything worse. Countless people will scroll through Instagram and admire the beautiful, happy, harmonious families that are having a perfect Hallmark Christmas. Many of these people will see these families while hearing their own families bicker, complain or just generally not live up to the ideal version of Christmas we see on TV. The expectation that the day will be perfect inevitably makes the smallest disagreements and inconveniences much more colossally disappointing.
The only good part about Christmas is the gossip. Christmas allows family to come together and it’s always refreshing to sit back with a mug of eggnog and catch up on family drama. I do see the positives of the holiday. So I’d argue I’m not a complete Grinch. But most of the time, I do hate Christmas.
