I have had it up to way beyond “here” with you people, and so I figured it was time I joined the spirit of the holidays and vent my spleen.

So listen up, all you Christmas bashers. You are not clever, special, unique, or different just because you “dare” to speak out against Christmas and tell people how much you don’t like it. We all will get along just fine without your oh so trenchant complaints about “commercialism” and “consumerism” and how much earlier the stores start flogging Christmas every year and how impossible it is to escape Christmas at this time of year and how “fake” and “artificial” it all is and blah blah blah. Everyone had heard it, nobody wants to hear it, so why don’t you just keep your precious thoughts to yourself for a change?

Yes, there is a great deal of crass, tasteless, thoughtless, atrocious commercialism that rears its ugly head and throws up all over Christmas every year. That has only been obvious since Snoopy. Way to keep us on top of the hottest social observations from forty six years ago there, Noam Chomsky. Here is a real mind blower for you : did you know that things are not always how they seem? Not only that, but you should be careful what you wish for, because you just might get it! I know, I know. These radical concepts might be too much for merely mortal minds to handle. Go ahead, take five while your paradigms realign. I can wait.

All done? Good, then let’s continue.

And yes, it is hard to escape Christmas at this time of year. That is not a bad thing. I think that in this modern socially shattered society, where we all live in our virtual walled cities where we do not have to associate with anyone unlike us for even a heartbeat and where the very idea that society asks anything at all from us is considered a massive affront to our personal freedoms, we should be overflowing with gratitude that anything at all unites us as a culture towards a single event, let alone one that is dedicated to the very highest of moral and spiritual ideals like Christmas. Christmas is the time of year when we celebrate love, compassion, family, togetherness, tolerance, and kindness. Every year, we need these things more and more. How dare anyone turn up their noses at all that down just because of some of the less pleasant aspects of the season?

I mean, who the hell do you think you are?

And sure, it is all “fake” and “forced” and “artificial”. That’s because it is part of society, and here’s a hot news update for you, society, indeed civilization itself, is entirely “artificial”. It does not fall intact from the sky and make us do what we do. It is something we human beings have created, expanded, refined, and improved over the years. It is as artificial as a strip mall or a beaver dam. Remarking on that fact as though it was some sort of extraordinary observation is just asking for the world’s biggest “Well, DUH!”.

And boy howdy, you are right to mention how they “start Christmas” earlier and earlier every year. Funny how you are the first human being to ever notice this. Must be nice to be so far ahead of the herd there, you dark sheep you. How does it feel to live…. in the future?

Oh wait, no, I was slightly mistaken, you are just saying what absolutely everybody else is saying. Alien life forms in distant galaxies bitch about Christmas coming earlier every year. It is beyond trite to bother saying it yourself. Just keep it to yourself.

And you are hardly the only person bothered by it. If I had my way, all Christmas themed displays and music would be banned from public places until December 1. But you don’t hear me complaining about it and ruining other people’s appreciation of the season.

And have a little mercy for the retailers. Every year, they do way more business during the Christmas season than in the rest of the year combined. For them, it truly is a magical, wonderful time of the year. So really, can we blame them for being a little over-eager and wanting to start that wonderful time a little earlier each year? If they could make it happen, people would spend like that all year round. It’s silly, perhaps, but understandable.

Finally, and most importantly, the true spirit of Christmas is simply far too precious and important and wonderful to give up on simply because you have gotten a good look at its less pleasant sides. The fact that keeping your Christmas spirit alive becomes harder as you grow older and the commercialized voices grow more ubiquitous and crass and our lives grow more busy and we grow more tired every year does not make it any less worth doing. In fact, the very fact that so many forces conspire to snuff out the Christmas spirit simply means that we need to cling to it and defend at all the harder.

Giving up on Christmas and falling into cynicism and jadedness is the easy way out. It is the path of cowardice, laziness, and the very forces that threaten to turn the whole thing into nothing but a consumer crapshoot in the first place. By giving up on Christmas, you are letting the forces of evil win. You are saying “I will let go of anything, no matter how powerfully good it is, if it becomes too much work”.

And then you turn around and complain about what other people are doing to Christmas?

So shape up or ship out, Christmas haters. Either admit that you are no better than the people you complain about, and have no right to say a word about it, or stop complaining from the sidelines and get in there and join the fight against cynicism, jadedness, and sadness.

Either way, do the world a favour, and shut the hell up.