This time of year brings out the best and the worst in people, often at the same time!
Everyone is frantically scrambling to get people "the perfect gift", often adding to the balance on their credit cards that will linger well into the coming year. (Talk about a gift that keeps on giving)
Every year a few more "must have" items will hit the market and desperation hits as people battle like Gladiators in the stores to get their hands on one... forgetting about "Peace of Earth" as they shove, kick and trample to make sure they get one.
Those that do not manage to find one in stores will then go online and try to buy one... often paying more than double what they would have paid in stores at online auction sites to people who decided after punching out an old lady for the item that greed outweighs gifting.
Where Santa once stood with bell in hand next to a red bucket there is now a person who looks as thrilled to be there as a patient awaiting a root canal, mumbling something that might be "thank you" as coins slowly drop into the bucket and you wonder if it is a real charity you are giving to or someone who will be heading straight to the liquor store at the end of their shift to turn those coins into "X-mas Spirits".
People battle over what to call the Holiday Season with Christians indignant that "Merry Christmas" is not said and posted everywhere in deference to the more encompassing "Happy Holidays" (I could get into the whole "Christ was not born in December and though it is celebrated at that time so are other religions Holidays" debacle, but honestly, we have all heard it before and it has not made a dent in the bitter battle).
No matter what religion you follow or do not follow the fact of the matter is that sensitivity and respect has flown right out the window to be replaced by greed, commercialism, avarice and strife as battle-lines are drawn in the snow.
I used to decorate the outside of my home every year... adding new things so that my home was awash in twinkling lights and figurines. It made me happy to make the season "bright"... but it did not make everyone happy.
One night, a few years ago, I had just finished decorating and decided to head to the store real fast to get one last string of lights to top off my decorations. In the 30 minutes I was gone someone destroyed every decoration I had... inflatables slashed (even one I had on top of my van parked in the driveway), lights cut, figurines stomped and tossed in the street, a wishing well that I had wrapped completely with lights thrown against the house.
Not only was it destruction of hundreds of dollars of decorations, but it was the murder of my holiday spirit... I was crushed... we called the police, filed a report, the officer disgusted as he looked over the destruction... cleaned everything up and went inside.
I have never decorated again.
Neighbors asked what happened and I told them, they said how they missed the display we used to do and asked if we would do it again... but no, we do not have money to throw away.
Eventually we found out who did it... the teen-aged boys of a Jehovah's Witness family around the corner who did not approve of our decorations and decided that it was their right to destroy it so they did not have to look at it.
That was the beginning of the end of my Holiday Spirits and the birth of my Scrougette days and the day my eyes opened to see just what has become of a season that used to be about coming together, sharing love and laughter and bringing some light to the long cold winter.
I might decorate again some day... but not until people stop being so greedy... not until people stop thinking that only their views matter and are willing to battle and degrade others and try to destroy everything and instead see the beauty in diversity.
With this in mind, I doubt I will ever decorate again, because greed, hate and secularity looks like it is here to stay.
So... Happy Holidays, Merry Christmas, Happy Hanukkah, Festive Ramadan, Bountiful Kwanza, Merry Yule, Splendid Solstice, Cool Tuesday... Merry Snarkmas to all and to all a Snarky Night!
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