The Festive Time of Year
Sincerity overload.
When the festive time of year begins in, oh I don’t know, September, we are reminded numerous times every day of two things -
1 : YOU NEED TO BUY MORE STUFF
2 : during this of peace and good will we should all be nice to each other.
No mention is made that the reason the Christian west gets so hot under the collar about this time of year is because it’s Mithras’ birthday, but what the heck.
No, this is the time of year which makes more money from consumers than the rest of it put together. Oh yes, and we should all be lovely to each other.
I hate it.
No, I don’t hate the consumerism (I consume, therefore I am). Nor do I hate the crowbarring of a religious festival into the calendar, despite being a firm proponent of religion being abolished (not faith, just religion). Nor is it the giving of gifts or the eating of a hearty meal or any of the tradition stuff. Nor carol singers, the Sally Army, pantos or Christmas trees or anything else along those lines.
What pisses me off royally is the enforced and bogus sentiment attached to this time of year. “We should all be nice to each other at Christmas”. Fuck that. We should all be nice to each other all year round, but that’s not viable really is it?
So instead we are instructed to be in a spirit of giving and loving and cherishing and a load of other baloney, when in fact the opposite tends to be true. Tis the season for self indulgence, for spending all your money on gifts and booze and food and crap that nobody needs. A time for wasting a fortune on cards which exist solely to keep the greetings card industry afloat. For sending greetings to people you don’t contact the rest of the year – why don’t you contact them? Because they don’t really exist in your life for the most part and you feel bad about that, so a premanufactured picture of a snowy scene with a charming yet vapid snowy message written inside allays your guilt at having neglected them somewhat.
Don’t get me wrong, I’m no hypocrit. I don’t send cards for the simple reason that if you were likely to receive a card from me I’d have seen you in person or spoken to you in a virtual sense recently. If I’ve not seen you in person recently or spoken to you in some fashion lately, chances are I’m really not all that bothered about it.
Parties and social evenings and drinking and eating and “getting together”. It’s all such a sham, which leads me onto my reason for writing on this particular date.
Happy new year, bitches.
Yep. New year can fuck off as well.
Between new year’s eve – “WE HAVE TO DO SOMETHING!!!”
Old lang sign (speeling mistook deliberate, can’t be arsed looking up how to spell it properly) – fake sincerity set to music and dead language.
New year’s resolutions – because we can only change something about ourselves on a particular date.
Review of the year TV shows – NOTHING HAPPENED.
I hate it. The enforced togetherness, the mandatory good feelings to everyone, the lack of sincerity about any of it just makes me want to hurt people.
My perfect new years eve is about the same as my perfect any night of the year. Which is why I’d sooner do it any night of the year. As for making resolutions I never stick to the bastards anyway, so I tend to make them all the time.
Of course, shortly after this, the media will kick in with “10 ways to make yourself more awesome in 2007″. Putting a gun to your head, probably not listed.
So, I dedicate this post to you, the west.
Take your season of good will and shove it.
Happy new year fuckers.
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