Christmas is overrated
Yes, my friends, I am a Grinch.
*ignores her gasping audience*
I don't like Christmas. Oh, okay, lots of shiny things come with Christmas. Carols, for one thing. And Adventskalender. And I'd list snow, but we never have snow for Christmas, so that's nothing Christmassy (Global Warming sucks dead hamsters through straws).
But I don't need Christmas.
I wouldn't mind having cinnamon-flavoured chocolate or goose or christmas cookies any other time of the year. I wouldn't mind having a count-down calender with little surprises for any date in the year I look forward to (though I can't quite think of anything I celebrate every year... hmmm...). Okay, carols are hard to sing at another time.
What's wrong with Christmas?
Yes, kids, exactly. Something about God.
Let's just leave the fact that I don't believe Jesus to have been the son of God. Let's just pretend we're celebrating the birth of a prophet.
Why, dear Christians, when it is so important to you to celebrate this, do you just pick any date where you'd like to have a party and make this day one of THE biggest Christian events of the year? Goodness. If you don't know when your Christ was born, then just don't celebrate it. If you like to break the dullness of dark winter with a party, celebrate something else. The Skandinavians just adopted the Christian aspect for their Yuletide Celebrations. Where's your problem?
Good news first: my theological problems are completely going under and need not be heeded.
Bad news: the reason for this. Because this reason is the fact that nowadays there's little else to Christmas but commerce.
Everyone's doing special Christmas offers, christmasizing their products, or just advertising whatever they're selling as the ideal Christmas gift. And don't forget the gigantic Christmas stuff industry. Sweets, decorations, christmas trees and music...
Then there's the great German invention of Weihnachtsmarkt - "Christmas Fair". Yay. As a child, I loved these. Today, I can't see the point. I admit to be very fond of the Medieval Christmas Fair in Siegburg, but I wouldn't love it less if it were just another Medieval Market some other time in the year.
Oh, and remember what I sad about linking Christmas Carols? Well, actually this is only true for such beautiful pieces as "Ich steh and deiner Krippen hier" or "Als ich bei meinen Schafen wacht". If I hear "Jingle Bells" one more time, there's going to be trouble. And I won't even mention "Silent Night".
(...although I deeply love the cardboard sign scene in "Love... Actually". *sighs* I might just watch that again soon...)
Dear Santa,
I have been good most of the year and for Christmas I would wish that you spare me the company of my huge family.
My mother's family does not celebrate with us, but it doesn't matter. We have all my father's family to make up for it.
I don't know why my fondness of my family is so microscopically little. Maybe it's because my mother's family thinks they're so funny and my father's family are a bunch of bitter people. Maybe it's because of the children. Maybe I'm just a mean cold-hearted person.
But I don't like them. And I don't like spending Christmas with them. Especially as our Christmas includes not only Christmas Eve (yes, Germans do the whole carol-singing present-unpacking feasting stuff on Decedmber 24th), but also my sister's birthday on 26th and, inescapably, the BIG family party some time between 27th and 30th. The time before that it's only me, my sister, my parents, my grandparents, my aunt and her daughter (7) and my uncle with his wife and his sons (6 and 8) packed together in one room. But once the official holidays are through, we pack all these together in a BIG room and add innumerable amount of slightly more distantly related people, such as the my grandmother's aunt's brother-in-law's daughter's cousin - no, I don't think I actually ever met someone like that, but you get the picture. Also, just because I haven't met them it doesn't mean they weren't there. It's easy to overlook someone in a room full of people confusing me with my sister and knowing things about me I never told them. (Or even mistaking me for my father's wife :p but that wasn't Christmas, we have more BIG family parties than that).
This year, my mother and me are risking a scandal - we're not going. Mother needs to work and I insist on going to a mini-class-reunion on 27th. We're going to be outlawed. *mwahahaha*
Very, very important: I like getting presents. I really do. But don't fuss! Really - don't! If you don't know what to give me and you head's spinning anyway, then just don't give me anything! I promise I won't cry. ...at least, I promise not to cry because of not getting any presents. (Same goes for birthdays, by the way, but we're talking Christmas right now.)
I mean, I don't know what to give you, and do you like what you get from me? Exactly. Anyway, what happened to the good old days when I was a child and could just draw something or do handicrafts for you? (Aaaaaaand we're back to commerce...)
Then there's Christmas cookies. Some call them "Plätzchen", I call them "Gutsle" cause I've got Swabian roots. Fine German tradition. But this tradition includes family.
Yes, I know. I don't like spending too much time with my family. But it does depend on the time and the amount of family. I like a quiet night of games with my parents and sister. And I liked making the Gutsle with my mother and sister when I was a child.
Then my mother didn't want to make them anymore and I made them myself, first with my sister, then alone because she was sick of it, too, and then just because it was expected that someone made them.
And now I'm sick of it. I'm not doing them this year. And mother, would you mind just asking if I could make them instead of just handing me a box full of bakery ingredients and cheerfully expressing your hope that I get started soon?
And father, that's very sweet of you to still have these illusions of Gutsle bakery being a family affair. Where have you been these past years, that all this could have passed you by?
If actually you manage to organise something like this, maybe I'll join you with the Bärentatzen. But you won't succeed, believe me. This family doesn't care about Gutsle.
And they all know very well that even though I'll hate myself for it and am already hating myself for it and even though I'm screaming and shouting and pouting right know, they know all too well that sooner or later I'll fall back into "someone has to" and just bake them.
I so can't stand this.
Ah well. It doesn't matter. I'm overruled, one way or another.
So I'll just og and make a list of Christmas presents for my darling family, see how much I'll pay for them, plan the bakery and be frustrated.
The Germans have a word: "Weihnachtsstimmung". Literally, it means "Christmas mood". And it's supposed to mean a warm, fuzzy feeling of magic and love and whatnot.
Unfortunately, with me, it usually means a depression.
I though I was getting around it this year. Apparently, I was mistaken.
It's December 13th and I'm already sick of Christmas.
(But, because Sweden is love, a happy Lucia to you all.)
So do me a favour:
If I should waver
Be my saviour
and get out the gun.
*ignores her gasping audience*
I don't like Christmas. Oh, okay, lots of shiny things come with Christmas. Carols, for one thing. And Adventskalender. And I'd list snow, but we never have snow for Christmas, so that's nothing Christmassy (Global Warming sucks dead hamsters through straws).
But I don't need Christmas.
I wouldn't mind having cinnamon-flavoured chocolate or goose or christmas cookies any other time of the year. I wouldn't mind having a count-down calender with little surprises for any date in the year I look forward to (though I can't quite think of anything I celebrate every year... hmmm...). Okay, carols are hard to sing at another time.
What's wrong with Christmas?
Yes, kids, exactly. Something about God.
Let's just leave the fact that I don't believe Jesus to have been the son of God. Let's just pretend we're celebrating the birth of a prophet.
Why, dear Christians, when it is so important to you to celebrate this, do you just pick any date where you'd like to have a party and make this day one of THE biggest Christian events of the year? Goodness. If you don't know when your Christ was born, then just don't celebrate it. If you like to break the dullness of dark winter with a party, celebrate something else. The Skandinavians just adopted the Christian aspect for their Yuletide Celebrations. Where's your problem?
Good news first: my theological problems are completely going under and need not be heeded.
Bad news: the reason for this. Because this reason is the fact that nowadays there's little else to Christmas but commerce.
Everyone's doing special Christmas offers, christmasizing their products, or just advertising whatever they're selling as the ideal Christmas gift. And don't forget the gigantic Christmas stuff industry. Sweets, decorations, christmas trees and music...
Then there's the great German invention of Weihnachtsmarkt - "Christmas Fair". Yay. As a child, I loved these. Today, I can't see the point. I admit to be very fond of the Medieval Christmas Fair in Siegburg, but I wouldn't love it less if it were just another Medieval Market some other time in the year.
Oh, and remember what I sad about linking Christmas Carols? Well, actually this is only true for such beautiful pieces as "Ich steh and deiner Krippen hier" or "Als ich bei meinen Schafen wacht". If I hear "Jingle Bells" one more time, there's going to be trouble. And I won't even mention "Silent Night".
(...although I deeply love the cardboard sign scene in "Love... Actually". *sighs* I might just watch that again soon...)
Dear Santa,
I have been good most of the year and for Christmas I would wish that you spare me the company of my huge family.
My mother's family does not celebrate with us, but it doesn't matter. We have all my father's family to make up for it.
I don't know why my fondness of my family is so microscopically little. Maybe it's because my mother's family thinks they're so funny and my father's family are a bunch of bitter people. Maybe it's because of the children. Maybe I'm just a mean cold-hearted person.
But I don't like them. And I don't like spending Christmas with them. Especially as our Christmas includes not only Christmas Eve (yes, Germans do the whole carol-singing present-unpacking feasting stuff on Decedmber 24th), but also my sister's birthday on 26th and, inescapably, the BIG family party some time between 27th and 30th. The time before that it's only me, my sister, my parents, my grandparents, my aunt and her daughter (7) and my uncle with his wife and his sons (6 and 8) packed together in one room. But once the official holidays are through, we pack all these together in a BIG room and add innumerable amount of slightly more distantly related people, such as the my grandmother's aunt's brother-in-law's daughter's cousin - no, I don't think I actually ever met someone like that, but you get the picture. Also, just because I haven't met them it doesn't mean they weren't there. It's easy to overlook someone in a room full of people confusing me with my sister and knowing things about me I never told them. (Or even mistaking me for my father's wife :p but that wasn't Christmas, we have more BIG family parties than that).
This year, my mother and me are risking a scandal - we're not going. Mother needs to work and I insist on going to a mini-class-reunion on 27th. We're going to be outlawed. *mwahahaha*
Very, very important: I like getting presents. I really do. But don't fuss! Really - don't! If you don't know what to give me and you head's spinning anyway, then just don't give me anything! I promise I won't cry. ...at least, I promise not to cry because of not getting any presents. (Same goes for birthdays, by the way, but we're talking Christmas right now.)
I mean, I don't know what to give you, and do you like what you get from me? Exactly. Anyway, what happened to the good old days when I was a child and could just draw something or do handicrafts for you? (Aaaaaaand we're back to commerce...)
Then there's Christmas cookies. Some call them "Plätzchen", I call them "Gutsle" cause I've got Swabian roots. Fine German tradition. But this tradition includes family.
Yes, I know. I don't like spending too much time with my family. But it does depend on the time and the amount of family. I like a quiet night of games with my parents and sister. And I liked making the Gutsle with my mother and sister when I was a child.
Then my mother didn't want to make them anymore and I made them myself, first with my sister, then alone because she was sick of it, too, and then just because it was expected that someone made them.
And now I'm sick of it. I'm not doing them this year. And mother, would you mind just asking if I could make them instead of just handing me a box full of bakery ingredients and cheerfully expressing your hope that I get started soon?
And father, that's very sweet of you to still have these illusions of Gutsle bakery being a family affair. Where have you been these past years, that all this could have passed you by?
If actually you manage to organise something like this, maybe I'll join you with the Bärentatzen. But you won't succeed, believe me. This family doesn't care about Gutsle.
And they all know very well that even though I'll hate myself for it and am already hating myself for it and even though I'm screaming and shouting and pouting right know, they know all too well that sooner or later I'll fall back into "someone has to" and just bake them.
I so can't stand this.
Ah well. It doesn't matter. I'm overruled, one way or another.
So I'll just og and make a list of Christmas presents for my darling family, see how much I'll pay for them, plan the bakery and be frustrated.
The Germans have a word: "Weihnachtsstimmung". Literally, it means "Christmas mood". And it's supposed to mean a warm, fuzzy feeling of magic and love and whatnot.
Unfortunately, with me, it usually means a depression.
I though I was getting around it this year. Apparently, I was mistaken.
It's December 13th and I'm already sick of Christmas.
(But, because Sweden is love, a happy Lucia to you all.)
So do me a favour:
If I should waver
Be my saviour
and get out the gun.