Humbug in its proper vernacular may be tied to Dickens best known book and character but intent of the word is still the same outside of the holiday season. When Scrooge says humbug, its not as a reaction to the holiday so much as his disbelief in people's attitudes. If the book were written today, Scrooge would probably be saying "Bullshit" instead - the affect, the meaning and the bendable quality of the word's intent is the same. That people making merry is bullshit, that people greeting each other happily is bullshit, that giving gifts and seasonal cheer is bullshit.
However, both humbug and bullshit are a less than accurate approach to how I feel about the holiday season.
This isn't to say I disbelieve everyone's well-wishing or want to spend the holidays alone. The problem is that the overwhelming majority of people - family, strangers, people I work with - are people I do not want to spend time with and yet are forced to. These are people I actively avoid if I can and don't seem to understand I want to keep it that way. I am a miserable fuck this time of year - this year chief amongst all, for reasons I need not detail - and I'd rather not be cornered into giving what will surely amount to either a no-hearted holiday greeting or a screamed line of slurs. Yet they persist, even when I put my hand up and say "No, thank you".
There are three work functions for the holiday season this year: One for this office, one for this building and one for everyone. They all involve different habits and obsessions about what foods, what things to do, what jokes to tell and frankly I'm tired of each of them. People glad-handing each other as if that one day makes a difference, that things could be put aside (if they even existed, as most act out such falsehoods that everyone gets along anyway) and everyone comes together for a celebration of a job well done. My boss wants to take us out to lunch, the following Thursday we had a pizza party upstairs along with a Yankee Swap / Selfish Santa game and then today is a huge President's luncheon which I skipped out on because I am so tired of this drivel.
This is all in the midst of a supposed budget crisis where over thirty people lost their jobs. Where the higher-ups have their thumbs on a pay freeze while they have board meetings for steak and claret luncheons. As they raise a new building, build a museum, purchase a fleet of new vehicles for the "Go Green" ideal. Where they cite that there is no money for anything and yet continue to build, continue to consume, continue to push higher tuition because of fewer applications, continue to raise basic allowances like parking that are free most other places, continue to higher more vice presidents to overlook department heads.
And no where is baby Jesus to be seen.
(And *I'm* the bad guy.)
Scrooge was right. Humbug. Humbug to the falseness shoved onto the holiday that people willingly take. That in the midst of supposed economic and environmental disasters, we're still expected to make merry even when we have no real right or reason to. That these horrible things that everyone is supposedly affected by somehow *go away* for a day and that goes double if you're Jewish or Muslim. That those of us who just want to skip the damn season aren't allowed to, that we're expected to go along with it and ride it out and give menial gifts we struggle to afford to people we usually don't want to see; these gifts becoming almost like apologies: "Sorry, I haven't been around the last nine months, heres a candy dish or paperweight or pencil sharpener with wall mount to make up for anything I missed bigger than a fender-bender and smaller than a funeral."
Would it be so unkind to get the one Christmas wish I really want: To be left out of this crap? To not have to deal with the social niceties no one actually means, to not have to fight for gift availability or traffic jams? To cut straight past the awful meals where everyone makes a compliment about the tablecloth because no one can think of anything else to say since no one wants to be there? To avoid the shit-stained kids you're asked to buy gifts for as if they didn't have everything already? To ignore the phone calls from estranged family members in the midwest or China or wherever the fuck they are?
I cannot tell you how many times and in how many different iterations I've had to go through with this: "Don't buy me anything. I'm not being coy. Don't buy me anything at all. Seriously, I don't want anything, I work for a living, if I want something I can get it myself. If you bought me something, return it and give the money to the Red Cross or some homeless guy who needs a fix to stay warm tonight. I don't want a goddamned fucking thing, so stop asking. I already have enough nostalgic attachment to shit I have and shouldn't feel attached to, I don't need more to shove into a closet and forget about. In fact, if you don't invite me over at all that would be best. Don't take it personally, I'm talking to you on the phone so I obviously don't mind your company but I don't like getting involved in this sham, thank you." (Strangely, it has yet to work.)
I don't want your holiday. I don't want your homemade dinner with the dirty potatoes made by Aunt Jenette. I don't want the fucking christmas carols. I don't want the holiday specials, the fucking Pine Sol stink of trees and I certainly don't want Its A Wonderful Life playing on the TV (Thats something so ruined by this holiday I'd require an entirely separate rant to explain.). I want to be left. the fuck. alone. I want to stay in and maybe have a few beers, take a nap on the couch and then maybe hang out with spme friends instead of driving to four different places, attempting to get to and from each place with the greatest of haste to get it all over with.
So stop. Please. For the fucking love of Christ in a very, very literal sense - stop with Christmas and leave me the fuck out of it. The real Scrooges are not the ones who say humbug, but Happy Holidays and if you think theres any good at all to come out of the season, you are part of the problem.
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