The days are getting darker, the trees are bare, the people are more lying and the music is worse – four reasons why our author says: “I hate Christmas!” And she has 20 more.
Every year, when the first gingerbread is presented in the supermarkets, something completely different stands out for me: the hairs on the back of my neck. Because even if gingerbread is said to be an autumn pastry and is therefore already on the market at the end of August, I associate it (just like with speculoos, marzipan potatoes and the like) one thing above all: Christmas – that feast of lies and the worst time of the year!
24 reasons why I hate Christmas
1. Darkness
Christmas and Advent are the darkest weeks of the year (darkest day in the northern hemisphere: December 21). And the smell of mulled wine and French fries with cinnamon and cloves from the Christmas markets has never helped me personally against winter depression…
2. Cold
Dry heating air, getting dressed for a quarter of an hour if you want to go outside, hunched, cramped shoulders and, in the worst case, ice and slush on the streets – sheer horror!!! Of course, there is neither darkness nor cold on the holiday itself, but I associate both with it – and unfortunately the festival of joy is making it damn difficult for me to disappear to the southern hemisphere these weeks. Then:
3. Expensive trips
At the beginning of December I can get to Miami and back for just under 400 euros. If I fly over Christmas, I have to shell out at least 1,000 euros for it. And when it comes to accommodation, we have a similar picture. Thank you Christmas vacation!
4th family
Schwiemu, the missing brother, aunt, grand-cousin and every member of the family, no matter how distant – everyone who hasn’t contacted us the whole year and doesn’t answer suddenly expect at Christmas that people will make a celebration of harmony and togetherness. Pfff.
5. Lying people as far as the eye can see
It’s not just in the family that the pretty halo is put on: Suddenly neighbors who you didn’t even know live downstairs wish you a happy holiday. And thousands of people discover their conscience at short notice and donate for starving children in the Third World or the last unicorn in Namibia. Sure, that makes up for the cheap goose from Aldi and the four kilos of plastic waste after the presents…
6. Christmas decoration
Superfluous stuff that may distract drivers, waste energy (keyword Christmas lights) and cause waste (in production, disposal and in general). Are you doing it, earth, aren’t you?! ?
7. Advertising from Hell
Creativity off, Christmas advertising on. During the Advent season, are student interns always allowed to work in the marketing departments, or what’s going on there?
8. Wham
Whenever I hear “Last Christmas” I wish for something like eyelids but for the ears. Unfortunately, other Christmas music isn’t any better either. ?
9. Stress
Christmas parties, family reunions, buying gifts, decorating, cooking, only 20 percent of the colleagues in the office and all that with a maximum of six hours of sunlight – sounds more like stress to me than contemplative, peaceful and holy.
10. Overeating
Christmas Eve raclette, Christmas Day goose, Christmas Day potato salad with mayo and in between stollen, chocolate and biscuits. Personally, I feel super uncomfortable when I eat a lot and just sit around. And when I then think of the said starving children, I find the cramming until I can’t do any more as doubly unpleasant.
11. Christmas markets
As I said: kitsch, drunks, wham and the smell of fries – the Christmas market is not really my thing.
12. Gifts
Giving away vouchers, perfumes and socks just because the 24.12. is? Appreciation and attention is different! You can always give something personal, regardless of the date.
13. Church
Church, Christianity and Christianity are particularly present at Christmas (for whatever reason – after all, it is now more of a commercial festival than a religious one) and I (as an atheist) get annoyed and disturbed by it, it’s just too much for me (for several reasons, the lead too far here).
14. Compulsory Vacation Days
Since I have nothing to do with the church: why do I have to do all my work on 12/23? do under stress and hectic if I don’t want to pray on the 24th?! Wouldn’t it be better for the state to fund me with a few extra flexible vacation days that I can take to go to the park in the summer?! (Yes, that also applies to Easter, Pentecost and what do I know – I think it’s totally stupid)
15. Advent Calendar
Garbage, scrap, stress for the parents, superfluous. In the past, when children couldn’t have as much chocolate as they wanted, something different for sure, but now it’s gotten to the point that poor kids have to open a present every day (why poor? Because the problems of people who, as children spoiled aren’t exactly funny.)
16. Christmas trees
I repeat myself: are you doing it, earth, right?! (Seriously: all of humanity shares one problem: that our planet can’t take all this much longer! But we still hold on to traditions that are destroying it. Why only??)
17. TV program
I wouldn’t care if I wasn’t forced to pay for it (broadcasting fee), but the Christmas program always fuels my hatred of this compulsory fee.
18. Christmas Movies
And in the cinema program three to four slots of Christmas films are blocked for weeks. Great …
19. Trash
Sure, where gifts, Christmas decorations and binge eating, there is also a lot of extra – easy peasy avoidable – rubbish.
20. Peer pressure
Celebrate, give gifts, decorate, eat gravy with dumplings just because everyone is doing it. When I think about it (which Christmas forces me to do every year at the latest), it just makes me sad how uncritical and easy to control we are (me too, by the way: At Christmas parties, I’m always the last one to leave).
21. Closed stores
You’re free sometimes and can’t go shopping. annoying!
22. Abandoned Authorities
And finally applying for the new person is not possible either. ?
23. Longing for childhood
Sure: As an unreflective child, I thought Christmas was great (as a festival for children, I still think it’s okay today if it’s eco-friendly and moderate). My parents usually flew south with my sister and me (my father was self-employed and there were the fewest cancellations over Christmas, so the expensive flights paid off again). In the meantime, only my mother is still there and without my dad I feel particularly sad at Christmas.
24. Christmas Hangover
Well, when the holidays are over and everyone’s stuffed, there’s a rude awakening. Overflowing garbage cans, lots of junk that you were given as a gift and now have to exchange or take to the basement, red numbers on the account, dead fir trees on the street corners and and and. And in the end, it was mainly the corporations that won, whose sales have skyrocketed again. Not that I have anything against it, but I just wish the world worked differently – without Christmas for example!