Christmas is a really fucking awful time of year

I hate a lot of things. Hate is a strong word, but it neatly describes how I feel about a plethora of experiences, objects and people that I endure on a daily basis. Or possibly extreme disgust. I’ve even begun discerning the different forms of hatred I feel. Gnawing, aching hatred at things you can’t change, such as people inexplicably voting Labour, but without enough conviction to properly win an election. I experience burning hatred at couples on public transport. I have no objection to people experiencing happiness, but when that happiness is of a private nature and clearly restricted to the blissful pair, I would prefer it if I were not cornered like a rat in a cage and forced into becoming an unwilling third wheel.

Christmas does not inspire either of these forms of hatred within me. It is something I am resigned to, a holiday that everyone will try and make me enjoy and inevitably I will not. I start hating Christmas early, just as the first posts from people I despise on social media appear, normally of the form “only x many days til’ Christmas”, in the middle of July. Quite frankly Sharon, I don’t give a fuck. The only reason I haven’t unfriended you yet is so I can feel smug at the shallow and vaccuous life you lead. I harbour hatred for the way Christmas creeps into our shops, like some kind of gaudy, glitter covered mould. The earliest I’ve discovered Christmas themed merchandise so far was in August. I do not need reminding that the odious celebration hijacked by Christianity is on it’s way and will soon be making my life a living hell. I would have much preferred Saturnalia, especially as a Roman slave.

Christmas for me, indicates the start of a hectic corporation dominated spend-fest, where the pressure to purchase the right gift for the right price is cloying and omnipresent. Black Friday sales piss me off particularly. Black Friday just shows you that companies are happily ripping consumers off for the rest of the year only to get us excited about possible “savings” and produce some admittedly hilarious videos of grown men and women fighting over a £200 TV screen. Secret Santa is the best example of everything wrong with Christmas consumerism: last year I received a mug with the handle in the shape of an erect penis. Every time I drink from it, the bell-end gets alarmingly close to my eye. Don’t think that I bemoan traditional Christmas either. I cannot testify as to how you feel about your families, but at best I experience apathy, if not downright irritation at the prospect of being seated around my grandparents. I don’t want to endure the excruciating details of how to use a colostamy bag and the enlightening chat you had with Maureen about painting watercolours of horses. Please see Sharon for my feelings on both of these topics.

As the alcohol begins to flow, people’s tongues loosen and slowly but surely, the converation slips from a fragile peace to violent all out war. Accusations are thrown too and fro, sowing the seeds for further recriminations for the future, before the bloodied parties have retreated to lick their wounds. Once evening arrives a false reconciliation occurs, as they once again cover their true feelings with a veneer of politeness. This experience of Christmas is probably why I approach it with such trepidation, bordering anxiety. This makes Christmas shit.

I blame the illusion of Christmas joy on Christmas films. All of them are forced attempts at humour and/or an attempt to extract some form of emotion from us. I haven’t been able to watch Home Alone without seeing the ghost of heroin-addiction future, and Love Actually is pretty rapey. Die Hard is an exception. Everything else Christmassy is shit.