Two sides of Christmas.
Saturday, Dec. 22, 2001 - 11:35 a.m..

Two nights ago, I spent some time sending e-cards to almost all of my contacts (almost 60) on my e-mail list. There's this site that sends one card simultaneously to 10 people, changing the name on the headline, so they look personalized. It saves a lot of time. It's sweet how people react when they notice you think of them.

Uh, Simeon...What is the big deal about christmas? Yeah, yeah, the spirit. I get that part. But people don't prepare for Easter, Thanksgiving, Labor's Day or something like that as much as they prepare for christmas. It's even october and you're already hearing about christmas. No holiday causes as much stress as christmas does. No holiday gets as much money out of your pocket as christmas does. I'm not blaming christmas. It's a great holiday (if you choose to ignore that, despite the good-will spirit, there are still millions of people who won't even have a smile on their face that day). Christmas rocks and it's the best day of the year (if you're lucky not to be one of those millions of people, for who christmas must be the worst day of the year, since everybody is happy except them). I don't care to spend money on presents, I don't care to get stressed because of searching everywhere and not finding that stupid Harry Potter doll and the useless tambourine these kids want, knowing that there's only 4 more days to christmas (I haven't found those things anywhere).

If you see the material side of the holiday, christmas is a bit pointless: you go thru spending money, getting stressed, looking for the right tree, setting up holiday decoration, buying tons of food for the holiday meal, sometimes even throwing a party, getting holiday clothes...all that for just one morning of unwrapping presents that will be forgotten a few weeks later. When it's over, you have to clean up the house, take down the holiday decoration, pay for everything you bought, return items that didn't fit and, for some people, lose weight. You get the post-christmas stress and that leaves you a Grinch syndrome that makes you be a bitter person, until christmas comes back again and warms up your heart a little bit. What sucks about christmas is that it doesn't last. If christmas lasted the whole year, or at least 6 months, people would have some more common sense and a humanlike behavior. Or probably not. People would get used to it and would make a boring, stressful routine out of it. And that wouldn't be a good idea for the stores either. Everything up to 50% for 6 months? That means bankrupt.

Then, there's the spiritual side, if you take aside the consumption. You do feel a stronger bound to people, they're more sensible, everybody wants to make everybody happy and wants to be with the ones they love. What else do you need? Ask my kids. They'll say they want a Harry Potter doll and a tambourine. Not that they don't care about being with their parents and the rest of the family but on christmas you must get a present. I don't know who did that rule, maybe Santa Claus, but that's how things work. Their heart will break if they don't get what they asked for. Which will be. Kind of. They wanted a dog but this is just not a good time.

This morning we had a happy breakfast time together. Before it, everything was spoiled, because the kids were told to turn off the TV and help to clean up a bit. But eventually everything worked out well and everybody finished their breakfast peacefully. It was a great family time. Which made me wish even stronger that no one else was coming for the holidays.......well, they're just coming for New Year but still...

Yesterday I heard the "Grandma got run over by a reeinder" tune all day long. It makes me feel sick already. All because the kids were excited to watch that movie tonight. If you ever get the chance to see that movie, don't you dare. It sucks big time.

Speaking of movies, the worst holiday movie ever made is Santa Claus conquers the martians. I've seen some clips and oh, God...it insults your common sense and hurts your eyes.

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