Violent Acres

I tuned into a local radio station yesterday to find a poor DJ in very hot water. While he didn’t make fun of a basketball team or fantasize about raping a government official, he apparently did do something unforgivable in the eyes of his loyal listeners.

He had just finished playing a Christmas song.

You should have heard the people howl! The DJ was fielding calls left and right. Everyone said the same thing, “How dare you play Christmas music this soon! I don’t want to hear this crap until after Thanksgiving!”

The DJ tried to argue, “Research shows that people want to hear Christmas music from November 1 to January 2!”

Personally, I thought his excuse was bunk. I mean, we haven’t cured AIDS yet. Cancer is still an epidemic. Yet, we are apparently researching the exact dates the average person enjoys listening to ‘Silent Night?’ Please tell me that that’s not true.

The listeners fought back. “I will quit listening to this radio station until after January 2 then!” they promised.

The frazzled DJ quit taking calls. Instead, he decided to read his emails. Before reading aloud yet another angry letter, he would mutter to himself, “Wow. This one is written all in caps!”

I chuckled to myself because I imagine such an extreme response to what amounts to a just a silly little Christmas song can only mean one thing: People are already starting to feel the Christmas pressure. I’ve said this before, but Christmas is nothing more than consumer gluttony masked as religious sentimentality. Hallmark and Kitchenmaid and Toy R Us have hijacked our holidays to the point where there is nothing actually enjoyable about them anymore. There’s just this vague, almost overwhelming urge to buy, buy, buy until we run completely out of money.

The very worst part is 90% of the shit we’re buying is crap that no one needs or wants. I mean, how many of you have ever sat around thinking, “You know what I could really use? A basket of salami and mustard…”

That’s why department stores only cart that shit out around the holidays. No one actually wants a gift bag full of scented candles and soap or a cheapy plastic back massager. People just feel compelled to buy it around the holidays because somewhere along the way, Christmas happiness became totally dependent on the amount of useless junk one could cram under a goddamn plastic tree.

And could we please quit pretending we participate in this madness for the children? I asked no less than 6 different kids this weekend what they wanted for Christmas. Every single one of them stared at me blankly and said, “Uhh…I don’t know.”

I thought to myself, “What the fuck do you mean ‘you don’t know?’ When I was a wee little misanthropic tot, I had a fucking list made out every fucking year!”

Newsflash people! If you ask your kids what they want for Christmas and they tell you they don’t know, it means they already have too much shit. You’ve plowed them with so much garbage on a consistent basis throughout the year that the novelty of Christmas has totally disappeared. Congratulations! Your kids are spoiled! Merry fucking Christmas!

The very worst part of all this is, come January, a lot of people are only going to find themselves deeper in debt. They are going to end up struggling to make car payments or keep the gas on. Credit card bills will follow them clear into June and should they ever sit down and calculate how much they ended up spending on bath beads and glass figurines (Which probably ended up in the trash anyway), they’ll have a hard time sleeping at night.

This time of the year always make me sad. It’s really fucking hard to get into the Christmas spirit when all I see is people plastering fake, strained smiles on their faces as they hand each other junk that no one wanted and they couldn’t afford. Even as they give each other pecks on the cheek, I know they’re wondering how they’re going to keep their heads above water.

Only advertising companies and big businesses are enjoying this new, perverted version of Christmas now.

Do you want to know what I want for Christmas? I want everyone to keep their money, pay their bills, and maybe sit down together while they have a nice meal and enjoy being a part of a family for a change. I want to see people who refuse to be manipulated by commercials and 2 hour only sales. I want people to put aside the greed and the status seeking and the love of all things shiny. Instead, I want to see them give each other hugs and be thankful for the things they’ve got.

Isn’t that was Christmas was supposed to be about?

I think there are quite a few people out there who are longing for a more traditional Christmas which is why I think that poor DJ got his ass reamed the other day. However, who wants to bet that after they gave him an earful, they hung up the phone, and rushed to the nearest department store so they can take advantage of yet another sale?

After all, it’s Christmas! Time to buy, buy, buy.

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