It's STILL SEPTEMBER!!!!!

And yet THIS is what I saw in Stop and Shop this week. Actually I saw it two weeks ago but I forgot to BLOG aboot it. A HUGE EIGHT FOOT TALL inflatable snow globe with Frosty and Santa and a Christmas tree and "snow" blowing in on them in the Snowglobe. Amidst the Halloween costumes and candy, there's a giant Christmas Snowglobe. Why does the Holiday Season have to get earlier and earlier every year?!?!?!?!?!????

No wonder I'm such a Scrooge by the time Christmas comes along, it's been shoved down my throat for 4 months, intensity getting higher and higher as the day approaches. Who wants to think about it by then? THIS is why I so dislike Christmas. I'm sorry if I offend people by that. I know that there are those of you out there who have a meaning to Christmas beyond Hallmark. But the gross overcommercialization of the holiday is just too much for me to handle. Christmas decorations, talk, food, music, food, STUFF everywhere you turn..... I can't stand it! (not that I love the overcommercialization of all the other holidays either... Halloween, Valentines Day, Mothers and Fathers Days, etc etc etc. It's ALL too much)

People totally forget that there are other people in this world. I HATE it when people try and feel so sorry for me because I have to work on December 25th. To be quite honest with you, I really don't care. I can go to the movies and eat Chinese food any day. To me, it's just another day. But people forget that there are people out there who DON'T celebrate Christmas.
And they seemingly don't care when I try to explain it to them, or maybe they just don't understand, because they still act all sorry that I'm missing out on Christmas by working. Not all of the time but a lot of the time. "But you have Chanukah" they think, "And that's really cool because it lasts so much longer. You get presents for eight days!"

Yeah there are all the people trying to be PC or whatever by making it a Holiday Season, a Seasons Greetings and not just Merry Christmas. Ok, I appreciate the gesture. Sort of. There are those who genuinely mean it, who genuinely understand and all that, people who don't try to shove Christmas at you. But most of the time it's an afterthought. So there are a million and a half Santa Clauses and Christmas Trees, and like one Menorah or Kwanzaa decoration. And that they think makes it ALL BETTER!!!

Well I really don't know a lot about Kwanzaa, but I do know about Chanukah. Chanukah is NOT a major holiday on the Hebrew calandar. It has its place and importance but it's not a major holiday. It's not even a gift giving holiday. (Purim is the gift giving holiday. It's also the dress up and eat candy and pastry holiday) Chanukah a time to remember miracles, and eat fried food and win gelt from the dreidel game. I love Chanukah for what it's meant to be, not for what it has become. (That and I like fire. Lighting candles is great!) It has become what it has become, commercialized to make it a money maker for Hallmark and Toys R Us because it happens to fall round about Christmastime. So Chanukah is overcommercialized because of its proximity to the gross overcommercialization of Christmas. That really bugs me.

I don't always mind the random person in the hallway wishing me a Merry Christmas because they don't know any better and they are just being nice and happy and all that. I DO mind the people who should know better and don't. The people who try to get me in on Christmas activities I'm not interested in just because everyone else is doing them. Things like swapping gifts and going out, and dressing up and all that. The people who make Christmas parties at a Jewish School because they aren't necessarily Jewish themselves. And ironically, you can't get Kosher food at these parties, well you can, but you pay the expensive price to go and while everyone else gets a yummy buffet, you get a tv dinner. It's those things around the holiday season that bother me. The ignorance and stupidity which I realize I'm not going to change. But it still bothers me. But most of all at the risk of repeating myself, I truly hate all the production and music and food and decorations and just too much STUFF for sooooooo LONG!!! Not that I'll really change that either....

Why does the Holiday Season have to extend from September through until February? I think I'd better stand it if it were between Thanksgiving and New Years. I know it would be probably too much to ask for the world to open up and see something beyond themselves, to realize and respect that there are other people of other religions in this world that don't like Christmas being shoved at them every year, but I don't think it's too much to ask to make the season a month and a half long instead of six.

But then again, Christmas is a big $$$$$ maker and well I guess Hallmark, and Toys R Us have to make $$$ somehow. So thank you for allowing me my little rant, and I'll go back to my quiet, personal, try to tolerate it dislike of the Christmas hooplah.