ho ho humbug?*

So we're nearing the apex of Holiday Season 2006 (©), and I'm wondering if any of you get The Holiday Blues like I get The Holiday Blues. I don't know what it is about Christmas and it's multi-denominational cousins, but I find something vaguely anxiety-inducing about this time of year. Maybe it's the fact that every day it gets dark a little earlier; I believe very much in seasonal depression, and also that I probably suffer from it. Maybe it's the hypocrisy of people wishing "Happy Holidays" to a stranger in one moment, and then in the next cutting off another stranger and flipping him the bird; all hypocrites piss me off normally, but the ones who pretend to radiate warm feelings but then perpetrate extreme acts of selfishness are the worst. Perhaps I just don't like the rampant commercialization of a so-called "Season of Giving"; I very much want to buy into that whole "good will towards man" spiel, honestly, but it's hard when Target is the one telling me about it, and then immediately after, trying to sell me a toaster I don't need. Maybe it's just that as an agnostic, I have no dogmatic reason to celebrate the season, just a spiritual and traditional one; and the news reports of people beating each other up to get the latest "it" thing for their kids make it hard to get into the spirit of the season. I don't know what it is, but Christmas leaves me cold, and it's a sad thing.

*post title is recycled from a previous year

Don't get me wrong, I'm not a scrooge, in any sense of the word. I love getting and sending Christmas cards, I love exchanging gifts with people who I care about, and I love being with my immediate family on Christmas day. And I'd absolutely love to participate in a genuine tradition of selflessness and love, one not tainted by Walmart and Sears. Those things are few and far between... even romance and marriage are over-commercialized, and have been for nearly a century. Diamonds, anyone? It's a little depressing sometimes to know that even our emotions are controlled by media and advertising. Nothing's sacred anymore.

Anyway, I'm currently listening to "Ben Folds Five - Brick", and I'm in a mellow, lazy mood. Not that there's any other kind of mood.