The Bah-Humbug thread!

I thought every time God closes a door he opens a window? That's why there are so many jumpers around the holidays.

rootabaga said:

...different metaphor.

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I was talking about Holiday jumpers ... What were you talking about?

dontpanicbobby said:

Spock thought Christ was illogical in one of those ST;OS episodes. Something about the sun... Uhuru set him straight.

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No no, Spock thought it was illogical that sun worshipers would exist in a mechanized society as sun-worshiping as a religion is usually considered primitive. Uhura explained it wasn't the "sun" (as in the sun in the sky) but was the "son" as in the son of God. Spock didn't comment on that revelation.

shalemail said:

thanks for straightening out that quote/scene.

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Well, if we can't quote Star Trek sub-plots accurately in an anti-Christmas thread on an Android user support forum, then I don't even know why I bother waking up in the morning.

I had my choice this morning of watching either the X-Files, the Walking Dead or Scrooge. I chose the creepiest one ... Scrooge. (Okay, I didn't choose it, but seeing how the wife hates the X-Files and neither of us give a zombie's posterior about the WD ... )

The premise of the story (as everyone knows) is a miserly old skinflint who cares nothing for his fellow man and led a miserable lonely life, inflicting his unsympathetic personality on anyone he has contact with. Those most affected are is nephew and clerk ('clark' for those of us still living in Victorian England ) -- the people he should care about most. His dead business partner, as part of his penance for living a similarly nasty life, appears to him and sets up a series of ghostly visitations (at this point I checked the channel guide to make sure I hadn't switched back to the x-files ) for his reclamation as a human being.

I won't bore you with the rest, because besides being a story that's been over-told, it's as believable as Mulder and the Lone Gunmen finding out Bigfoot is an alien who smokes.

It got me thinking, though. You see, i am constantly called a scrooge at the holidays. But, I am pretty much a fun guy. I have friends and help out whenever I can. I try to lighten the load of my fellow human without thought of compensation. I'd like to think I'm generous and forgiving and all those things that Scrooge is not. And, I don't dislike the season because it puts a dent in my pocket or because I don't like having a good time.

If I had a dead friend send some spooks my way to "fix" my Christmas spirit, I wonder who they'd be and what they'd show me? I know if I got the same group as Scrooge, I'd see a really f***ed-up childhood holiday season and a family who took the 'fun' out of dysfunction. I'd see that in the face of a boatload of emotional crap, both environmental and genetic, I turned out pretty well, with a generally positive outlook.

The big fat ghost of over-indulgence would take me around today and show me all the fights at Walmart over the $50 TV, religiously motivated bombings, secularized holiday pageants at schools where they teach creationism as science, and hosts of people who criticize all the "scrooges" for bringing down Christmas.

I think when the third guy shows up, I'd just give him a great big hug and say it's okay, you can just leave me here in the cemetery.

Bg260 said:

I used to dread Christmas because I had to spend it with my family. Now I dread it because I don't get to spend it with my family.

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I'd let you spend it with my family, but somehow I don't think that would help.

I have no bad habits, only misinterpretations of my good intentions.

That's not dust in your eye, @rootabaga , it's my fist.

My reaction to the 5-year-old ...

rootabaga said:

But in some ways it does make things better, if even for a short while.

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But not for everybody. This time of year is very hard for me. It's not because I lost a loved one or my puppy was run over or I didn't get the gift I wanted. Hell, my son was born on Christmas Eve (talk about a joyous gift). As the days darken so does my mood, but Christmas is what produces stress and anger and depression. I've tried drugs and counseling and even hypnosis. And here we are.

Christmas to me is a solution in search of a problem.

rootabaga said:

And, with that, I'll close by saying that I rather think I misinterpreted the point of this thread.

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Go read the first post.


And that, Charlie Brown, is what depression is all about.

My new Facebook profile picture ..


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Thanks for the words @shalemail. It's very similar to the social anxiety thread in that this is misunderstood. It's not that I hate Christmas in concept, but Christmas in practice hurts me. I wrote a Novel roughly based on it (as yet unpublished and in dire need of an editor).

Christmas (the whole season) is like a blizzard. You know it's coming and it's going to disrupt everything for a period of time. There's dread from the possible damage it can cause and anxiety in preparing. When it finally arrives, nothing you can do but wait it out. When it's over, you have to dig out, but eventually it's just a memory and then business as usual.