Simply put, I don’t like Christmas. Hate, hate, hate. Hate, hate, hate. Double hate. Loathe entirely. I like the nice, twinkly lights and the biting, cold weather, but neither of those things are exclusive to Christmas considering that I hang lights in my bedroom all year and the season of winter exists. I’ll wear the knit sweater featuring penguins wearing Santa hats, but underneath that slightly itchy and musty facade, I am quite literally the Grinch who stole Christmas.
As a child, I was never a firm believer in the magical powers of Santa Claus. I continually questioned his ability to travel to every single house at exactly midnight, and I distinctly remember asking my mother why the elves slaved over my new Polly Pocket set when they could have easily just bought it at the store. The Christmas that I finally called it quits was when I received a Nutcracker-themed Barbie doll with “bookmarks” that were clearly just the sides of the box cut out.
In high school, I didn’t have the best judgment of character and I ended up dating some not-so-nice boys. Turns out that three in particular had a knack for breaking my heart in the month of December. My mind still associates the holiday season with an all-around unpleasant love-life thanks to Ben, Chris and Sean. At least since my senior year of high school, I’ve been as bitter about Christmas as the bite-sized dark chocolate Hershey’s that you always mistake for the classic milk chocolate one.
Santa Claus is a ruse to brainwash children into behaving. Parents tell children the factual, yet fantastical story about the fat stalker who will break into their house with his reject, reindeer sidekick to give them a dirty lump of coal if they are naughty. Their small, beautiful brains are naturally creative at an early age, and they can’t help but to believe what their parents tell them. Children will figure out that Santa is a sham eventually, and they will begin to realize that they’ll receive a gift regardless of their behavior during the year.
Shopping malls and specialty stores then replace the void in our hearts where Santa once left his butt-print. We buy things we don’t need. We buy things for other people that they don’t need. We buy the special canned food for our dogs even though they can’t tell the difference. Half of the scented candles and glittering body lotions that you buy Nana Kay are going to sit in her basement, and we know this, yet Yankee Candle and Bath and Body Works are still open for business.
I fully expect to be forced to live in a garbage dump with only a dog for company after this article is published, but if I have to hear one more verse of “Jingle Bell Rock,” I may just have to steal all of the presents in Searcy and throw them off the side of Bee Rock. Perhaps I’ll be perpetually single for the rest of my life just because I despise Christmas. I don’t expect my heart to grow three sizes larger any day soon, but some small six-year-old girl may change my mind one day.
