Now that the long awaited 4-day weekend has come and gone, at the blink of an eye I might add, it’s time to patiently await the arrival of Christmas and more importantly prepare for the onslaught of holiday shoppers, cranky drivers and bell ringers. Every year around this time I ready myself for the craziness of the holidays and yet it never really matters because I become caught up in the holiday fever as well.
This year however, my wife and I have already decided that the majority of our shopping will take place online. We figure by taking this strategy we’ll avoid most of the holiday craze when people are caught in a zombie-like trance to pillage and plunder local Targets, K-Marts and KB Toys for the latest and greatest toy gadget for their children. Luckily, for the time being, my daughter is still young enough where she isn’t entranced by toys but considering her first birthday is next month it won’t be long until she’s tugging at our pant legs and staring up at us with those stinging puppy dog eyes.
I’m reminded of John Grisham’s Skipping Christmas (renamed Christmas with the Kranks for the Hollywood adaptation), a satirical view of the holidays. The main characters, Luther and Nora Krank, decide that they’ll skip Christmas after sending their daughter off to Peru for Peace Corps. Luther tallies up the previous years expenses for Christmas and estimates they can save in the thousands if they take a 10-day cruise instead of celebrating the aforementioned holiday. Of course chaos erupts and the rest of the book is perfect material for the typical Hollywood Christmas comedy, including a madcap sequence with a plastic snowman and the embarassment of settling with a scrappy looking tree.
It just goes to show that no matter how hard you try to ignore, strategize or avoid Christmas it’s never going to disappear. You simply cannot wipe Christmas from your calendar. It’s the proverbial monkey on your back, but in this case he’s wearing a santa cap with a 30 pound sack of presents slung over his shoulder.
Amen brother… Now that we’re all grown up in the family and not having children of our own (yet), I can’t imagine what is like to cope with the pressure of a child on a toy store. I don’t know about you but we’ve been bombarded with Christmas propaganda since… well, from as early as mid-August (no kidding!) and some department store’s take on this matter is, to say the least, delirious. I can’t believe how much is spent on bombastic displays only to tear them off a month later.
I don’t want to sound like a sourpuss - it’s just that, now that I’m well past my quarter-life crisis, I conceive Christmas more as a time to spend together with those you love and reflect on real family values, specially when your family members just get older with each passing year… making the time spent even more worthwhile.
Beto:
That’s exactly what Christmas is about, aside from the gift giving and drunken parties. ;)
I’m going to see this movie on Thursday even though the movie has gotten bad reviews. What can I say?…I’m a fan of Tim Allen and Jamie Lee Curtis. So, bad or good…its Christmas and time to see movies like this.
The movie may not be a ‘Howard the Duck’ but its a night out in a small town.
There’s another rage concerning Santa Claus in the Netherlands at the moment. There’s a long story behind it all: Sint Nicolaas (or Sinterklaas) was a bishop from Mira, Turkey, who was a man of good deeds. In this era of the world, he’s just a figment of the collective imagination, but the essence is still there. He has negro servants and gives all children presents. But your so-called Santa Claus is his fat, Americanised clone, taken to the US a long, long while ago (presumably) by Dutch explorers.
Now, back to the real action: Sinterklaas is on the fifth of December, but in November already, stores are laid out for Christmas. So the risk is that an age-old Dutch tradition might be sat upon by his fat nemesis and clone (oh, the irony!), an imported version of our own tradition is taking over. Now, many people don’t want this, but many stores just pay attention to Christmas more than to Sinterklaas, which is a shame.
And I don’t like buying shit for Christmas anyway.
Rob: Wow man, thanks for the history behind Sant.. err.. Sinterklaas. It’s too bad he was Americanized as much as he was because in my mind, Sinterklaas just sounds cooler, both phonetically and aesthetically.