Bah!
Recent conclusions: Low on the Christmas Cheer.
I don’t like Christmas. I know what you are thinking, ‘gasp, a real live Scrooge’. It is like not liking puppies or not enjoying those bins of bubble balls at the mall. I’m a little scared to admit it really, but I just do not like Christmas. Now, of course what I actually mean is that I don’t like how Christmas looks from my view in 2009. The consumer stuff is really getting to me this year for some reason. I used to like all the people in the downtown shopping, but now the extra cars on the road only remind me of climate change and the consumption of unnecessary goods opens too many questions about where and under what conditions our products were made. I will soon escape to the village where everything is local and the skiing is superb.
I don’t like that we lie to children about some mystical man who rewards us for our goodness (sorry kids, I know the truth can be harsh). Really the only factor to whether or not you get tons of manufactured goodies on December 25th is the financial position of your parents. Stratification children, learn it early. Saint Nicholas is the patron saint of children and sailors....he does not bring you presents. I just remember feeling stupid and uncertain about this jolly man. I was one of the kids who never wanted to see Santa at the mall...or in my case at the legion. He was a stranger and scary...and I didn’t understand why it was okay for him to wonder in our home in the middle of the night.
In the Netherlands Santa is called Sinterklass. On Presents day (December 5th) children leave their shoes in front of the fireplace before they go to bed. Here are our shoes, please leave us presents. Sinterklass visits every year from Spain. He arrives by steamboat and has a white horse. Oh and Sinterklass has black ‘helpers’ who work for him ‘voluntarily’ and if you are bad they will take you back to Spain in a sack. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sinterklaas
'Maybe Christmas,' he thought, 'doesn’t come from a store.
Maybe Christmas … perhaps … means a little bit more!'
I don’t like Christmas. I know what you are thinking, ‘gasp, a real live Scrooge’. It is like not liking puppies or not enjoying those bins of bubble balls at the mall. I’m a little scared to admit it really, but I just do not like Christmas. Now, of course what I actually mean is that I don’t like how Christmas looks from my view in 2009. The consumer stuff is really getting to me this year for some reason. I used to like all the people in the downtown shopping, but now the extra cars on the road only remind me of climate change and the consumption of unnecessary goods opens too many questions about where and under what conditions our products were made. I will soon escape to the village where everything is local and the skiing is superb.
I don’t like that we lie to children about some mystical man who rewards us for our goodness (sorry kids, I know the truth can be harsh). Really the only factor to whether or not you get tons of manufactured goodies on December 25th is the financial position of your parents. Stratification children, learn it early. Saint Nicholas is the patron saint of children and sailors....he does not bring you presents. I just remember feeling stupid and uncertain about this jolly man. I was one of the kids who never wanted to see Santa at the mall...or in my case at the legion. He was a stranger and scary...and I didn’t understand why it was okay for him to wonder in our home in the middle of the night.
In the Netherlands Santa is called Sinterklass. On Presents day (December 5th) children leave their shoes in front of the fireplace before they go to bed. Here are our shoes, please leave us presents. Sinterklass visits every year from Spain. He arrives by steamboat and has a white horse. Oh and Sinterklass has black ‘helpers’ who work for him ‘voluntarily’ and if you are bad they will take you back to Spain in a sack. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sinterklaas
'Maybe Christmas,' he thought, 'doesn’t come from a store.
Maybe Christmas … perhaps … means a little bit more!'