|
News, commentary, opinion on politics, government, books, social trends, American life, travel, cycling, books, other stuff
|
|
|
Oh what a happy, joyous time of the year? Who says?
I guess I haven’t been a fan of Christmas for a long time. Well, a confession, I know I have not been for a very long time, at least in the way it is observed across America.
I don’t understand the compulsion for shopping, for one thing, even though I have tried to analyze it. I don’t understand why everyone is convinced that they must do the exact same thing that everyone else is doing at the end of the year. Hey, if it makes sense to you, it doesn’t bother me, except when it does.
Like when trying to find a place to eat while driving back from New York and not being able to get within a block of a shopping center because of the traffic. The other night, I was driving west passed New Hope, Pennsylvania and there was a line about three mile long line of blocked traffic in the other direction, waiting for a chance to drive through one of those over-the-top displays of Christmas lights. Who would wait for an hour or more to do that? Who finds such an exercise an example of sanity? The only idea I was able to conjure up is someone who might be stoned or parents trying to give a bit of wonder to very small children. Otherwise, wha’s da point?
The best advice I could give anyone is don’t go near a store. If you do, you will have to wait in a long, slow line to pay for what you want or most of what you thought you were going for will either be sold out, damaged or lost in a messed up pile of other stuff. Shopping is not always a combat experience this time of year, but it can become that quite easily. The clerks are overworked and many of them are unhappy; the shoppers are generally not in a much better off.
What amazes me every year is that people are out and about and in foul moods. Don’t try to stop and talk to someone: they are too busy. They don’t have time for you, they barely have time for themselves. So much energy and money is spent to try to make that one happy family moment in front of the Christmas tree. To my eyes, it seems as if people are chasing an illusion of happiness, but, all the same, they will try it again next year in the exact same way. I guess it is like Santa Claus himself: if you believe hard enough, it works.
Hey, now hold on, I am not against Christmas and I am not against good times with family or friends. What I am against is the frantic excess of Christmas and the end of the year. We have been ordered to have a good time and be happy and we are going to find it, anyway possible! I don’t understand the orgy of spending, either. More stuff, an excess of things, never made anyone happy for more than a few moments at a time.
It is, overall, a mean time of the year in public places, in traffic, in stores and, often, in any random encounters one might have with friends and acquaintances. To top it off, people bring their frantic attitudes into doing business this time of year, too, often getting very brusk and very rude to collect on invoices “before the first of the year”, even if the bills have just arrived and are not technically due yet.
All of this might relate somewhat to the shorter winter days. It is well known that humans need light, preferably sunlight, to maintain emotional balance. When days get shorter, people tend to get tense. It is as if the body senses some impending doom, as if the shorter days signal the end of the world or something. So, we schedule this massive holiday of lights on the darkest time of the year, hoping. We gather together in small groups, awaiting the end, trying to be joyful.
Doug Terry, 12.23.13
|
