Wednesday Whine: Things I Hate About Christmas, Part I

 

Before I do anything else, I must apologize for the absence of a Wednesday Whine last week. My faithful partner in crime Earl was down for the count due to school and I’ve been sick the last week and a half. So if you missed it, I offer my sincerest apologies. Also, for those of you who complained about me not doing it, thanks for the help. Anyway, moving on.

There are plenty of things to like, or even love, about Christmas.

Spending time with family has to rank near the top of the list. For those folks who are spiritually inclined, Christmas and its cousins Hanukkah and Kwanzaa provide an opportunity to celebrate and spend even more time with family and friends. Christmas usually provides some time off work (even if it’s only a couple of days), and that is certainly a great thing. For football fans, Christmas is smack dab in the middle of college football bowl season and during the most crucial weeks of the NFL regular season (unless you have a comfortable division lead and rest all your starters). Let’s face it, there are plenty of positives when thinking about Christmas and the holiday season. And I just mentioned them all in one fairly short paragraph.

For all the niceties Christmas Time brings with it, it brings with it even more retardedness (I’ve been told this isn’t a word, I don’t believe it) and stupidity. It’s Black Friday times 10. It’s that nice family lunch multiplied by one too many distant cousins. It’s a few thousand too many strands of icicle lights and just a bit too much egg nog. And it’s all packed into a month, more or less.

I’ll start with a definition of “Christmas Time” just so everyone is on the same page. For the sake of these posts (notice posts, this will be a theme all month), I’m going to call the period from Black Friday through the first week of January Christmas Time. Black Friday is the first reminder of just how much is wrong with this country and by the third of fourth day of the new year everyone has had their fill of Cousin Eddie.

During the next three weeks, I’m going to dedicate the Wednesday Whine to Christmas Time. Each week I’ll point out a couple of things that drive me mad and talk a bit about them. I do, however, want some participation from you, the reader. Please e-mail, comment or tweet your least favorite things about Christmas Time. I don’t care how big or how small — I want to hear from you.

Ok, here’s a couple to get things started, courtesy a coworker and a couple of friends.

Car Decorations

Is the house not enough? Do you really need the Reindeer Antlers sticking out the top of your driver and passenger windows? Or the Rudolph Nose on your front fender? As my coworker put so well, I hope that stupid Rudolph Nose gets sucked into your radiator and leaves you stranded in mall traffic for days.

And what about the utterly hideous luggage rack lights? I’ve yet to figure out how this even works to begin with, but I do know that no Yukon or Tahoe has ever looked good driving down the road with commercial grade lights attached to the top. Here’s an idea, attach a snowboard, or even skis, to your luggage rack and head northwest from Raleigh. Stop in West Virginia, and stay there.

Christmas Music

This really could be a post of its own, and maybe it will be down the road if the mood strikes me, but I couldn’t resist for this week.

My hatred of Christmas Music probably runs deeper than most folks. That is mainly because I work in retail and listen to this crap for two months instead of the six-week period I’ve designated as “Christmas Time.” Guess the higher-ups didn’t get that memo yet. On top of the length of time I have to listen to this stuff, it gets worse and worse. By it, I mean the songs themselves. How many times can these songs be butchered? It looks like the answer is infinity. Exhibit A — Cyndi Lauper.

Because of the pain I’m sure watching/listening to that just caused, I’ll stop the discussion of Christmas music there for this week. I’ll be sure to find another catchy tune for next week.

Because Cyndi has put me in such a sour mood now, I’m going to stop right there for this week before I get too mad and start damaging my keyboard. Please send me your least favorite things about “Christmas Time” so I can include them in the coming weeks. Leave a comment or send me a tweet. Also, if you don’t mind, take two seconds and share this post with some friends. Re-tweet it, post it to your Facebook profile, I don’t care, just share it. I’m still getting this blog off the ground and getting new eyes to the site always helps.

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