Christmas.
A few weeks ago I was giving my annual “Grinch gripe” to my wife. It’s a well rehearsed rant about the senseless, arbitrary materialism that has come to be associated with a religious holiday…and has nothing to do with my antisocial leanings or general dislike of shopping. You don’t believe me either, eh?
My wife, Janet, said that I could skip all the mid-winter consumerism if I went to Midnight Mass; being a Grinch and a backslider go hand in hand. I said it was a deal, yet I found myself spending more time in stores this month than I did during the eleven before. We’ll see if there’s a suit hanging in the bedroom when I get home from work….
Update: No Midnight Mass. My wife slipped, hit her head, and has a mild concussion. She’s fine, but we spent the first few hours of Christmas in triage. We’ll see what next year brings….
Sundry Thoughts of Cameron Watt 
Cameron, I share your brand of ‘grinchiness’ about Christmas. About 20 years ago I found myself wandering around a shopping mall on about Dec 20, miserable, looking for gifts for family members, when I had an epiphany: WHY AM I DOING THIS? “This” being an activity I loathe to find goods for people with already overstocked homes and lives who, basically, need nothing, and should want nothing. So I stopped. I wrote a letter to everyone after Cmas saying I’d decided to stop Cmas shopping forever, except for the kids (for whom I enjoy shopping). The reaction was bordering on violent. I’m living it down to this day…but I enjoy the holidays a lot more.
Michael Crichton received a letter such as yours; it served to inspire his story, Christmas with the Kranks.
Gifts are so much more than what you buy in a store… To stop without telling people ahead of time is rude. My stepfather always suggests this once we have gotten gifts for him. He’d rather we donated money to charity and then give the person the receipt…. A gift can be bought in a store but it can also be homemade, a gift of time, a hosted dinner with an evening of games. This year I made gifts for everyone in our family including the madwelder. I also gave a gift of time with going to the spa and lunch with my mother, mother-in-law and grandmother-in-law. Kay was delighted with her pedicure and truly enjoyed spending the day being pampered with a bunch of women.
It is the thought behind the gift that is important and not the gift. It says that you thought about them and what they like and perhaps something they would never have thought to get themselves.
I am surrounded by grinches but I refuse to let them rain on my fun. I hope that I can help their hearts grow three sizes and come off their home on Mount Crumpit.
This blog’s sanctimony quota is entirely reserved for the author!
I don’t want to steal Christmas….I’m just a conscientious objector.