Tis the season for 5 a.m. shopping sprees, crippling seasonal depression, and regrettable eggnog drinking contests. Color me cynical, but the holidays are a drag.
A man literally gave his life for a Long Island Wal-Mart on Black Friday after being trampled to death by a mob of possessed shoppers, even though the cast of “Twilight” was nowhere in sight. Two men are dead after a shooting at a Toys R Us the same day, and while the dispute was reportedly “personal” and possibly not related to the scarcity of “Elmo Live” dolls, the fact that there was enough emotional distress to elicit gunfire at a children’s toy store is disturbing enough. When death is the price paid for discounts on redundant technology and a Little Tikes Ride-On H2 Hummer, I think it’s a sign that there’s something wrong with the way the season is being “celebrated.”
I’ve felt holiday skepticism coming on for a while now, but this was the final straw that broke the Christmas camel’s back. Bemoaning the ills of holiday capitalism is not new. But with the collapse of the economy bringing to light the consequences of personal financial irresponsibility, one would think that material greed would have subsided. Not so, according to a San Luis Obispo Best Buy employee who was interviewed on my local news while I was home over the holiday.
“I keep hearing about all these economic woes,” he said, “but I’m not seeing it.” He certainly didn’t see it in customer Erik Johnson, who waited in front of Best Buy for more than 30 hours for a PlayStation 3. Congratulations, Erik. Not only are you the owner of an overpriced video game console, but you also win the Twenty-Something-Who-Made-The-Best-Of-His-Precious-Time award.
But wait, there’s more that I hate about this season!
At a certain point, going “home” for the holidays, to the place where you grew up and went to high school, is no longer the relaxing safe-haven it once was (circa freshman year). While I enjoy being in my actual house, where I have VIP access to a stocked fridge and can talk out loud to my dogs judgment-free, there are also certain social anxieties that come from interacting with old high school associates I run into around town.
I’m from a place where you can’t go anywhere without seeing someone you know and where everybody knows your name, but unlike “Cheers,” it’s not a source of comfort, mostly due to the lack of Ted Danson. Yeah, I stay in touch with a privileged few, but for the most part ““ and I don’t me to be harsh about this ““ I would rather avoid the people I knew in high school.
Last winter break, I made the horrible, naive decision to attend a New Year’s Eve party with a large mish-mash of former classmates. What should have been a jolly, champagne-soaked, trip down memory lane turned into a horrific flashback, where this “memory lane” is actually a mortifying traffic jam of catty girls, braces and Friday nights spent alone watching TLC (not much has changed, really). These kinds of meetings give me a headache worse than the one I got after viewing 10 seconds of “The Real Housewives of Atlanta” reunion special.
Suffice to say things are especially awkward after I went on a Facebook friend-deleting spree awhile back. Running into that psycho from ceramics sophomore year at Starbucks is an excruciating experience.
Another thing I hate are the slew of horribly sap-tastic movies that come out this time of year. “The Holiday,” “The Family Stone,” and “Christmas with the Kranks” are recent films that demonstrate this. There are some awesome holiday movies too, but the genre has lately been polluted by Vince Vaughn, who can’t seem to get enough Christmas roles, starring in the abysmal “Fred Claus” last year and “Four Christmases” this holiday season.
I don’t want to sound like a total scrooge ““ there are a few things I enjoy such as “The Godfather” marathons on TV, the “A Charlie Brown Christmas” sound track, decorative lights and hilarious live nativity scenes (like the one Larry David hired in an episode of “Curb Your Enthusiasm”). But these few things aren’t worth the disgust I feel when I hear about a dead Wal-Mart employee and a new Vince Vaughn Christmas movie. After all, the best thing about this country is that we have the freedom to watch gangster movies and listen to the Vince Guaraldi Trio all year round.
If you want to host a Vince Guaraldi Trio dance party, then e-mail McReynolds at dmcreynolds@media.ucla.edu.