Happy Holidays From Misanthropy Today
This coming from a website that you know probably doesn’t like you, admittedly, is an odd salutation.
I’ve been thinking lately about how the Holidays seem to mean less and less as time goes on. I’m not sure if this is a focus group of one or if anyone else notices this.
Last Christmas Eve I was at a nice restaraunt here in LA (and later several bars) with an old, good friend (and later three latina nurses).
I probably also had a lot of tense conversations and text messages with my girlfriend at the time. Our relationship was disintegrating. We just didn’t know why we were doing it anymore. I went home, surely drunk, slept alone and woke up and went to Las Vegas with some other friends the next day.
I did drugs too, I think.
Of course I talked to family and friends on the phone and everything. They worry sometimes.
The other day a sales person called me at work and asked how my Thanksgiving was. I explained that I had the flu and slept through most of it. “Well no Thanksgiving is better than Thanksgiving with my family!” he said.
It was a nice thing for him to say.
I wonder if the Holidays losing their meaning is apart of a larger loss of meaning and purpose in our lives. To blame our cheap media culture and obsession with wealth and celebrities, an obsession that for most of us will never come to fruition, seems too easy. It’s apart of it though, surely. We can blame the war too, I guess.
I guess the bigger problem is we all ask ourselves why we are doing this. By this I mean any of it.
Because we are all so free to do what we want to do, nothing ever feels wrong or particularly right. I don’t really have a family, community or Church to answer to, and you probably don’t either. There’s nothing for me to rebel against or to draw me in again.
The great lie of our generation is that being a rebellious, unapologetic, individual with money is the highest post one can attain. It’s really not true. You need your family and friends and you need the Holidays and meaning in your life.
One of Vonnegut’s puppets, Kilgore Trout once said in a book “I have no culture, no humane harmony in my brains. I can’t live without a culture anymore.”
So this blogs grand subject (if it has one) is to point out that while there is a lot of bad stuff out there that smashes your soul, life is pretty good still. Sure maybe the Holidays have lost some of their magic and sure your family is probably unbearable, but not everything is as instantly gratifying as a Youtube video of some kid getting kicked in the nuts.
Not everything is effortless and nothing good is.
Anyhow, find something meaningful to do with your time this Holiday season. If it’s eating dinner and getting drunk at a restaurant in downtown LA, do that.
Theres a few nurses I can introduce you to.
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I know this is super uncool of me to say but…..I love my family and enjoy my time with them.
Today is the first day of Chanuka & I wasn’t with them which made me upset.
The holidays are colorful, musical & shopperific. People tend to get a bit nicer around this time & the weather is just right.
Egg nog, vodka, hot chocolate, whatever, it’s all good to me.
Happy Holidays to you & your readers.
P.S. By saying that , I’m kinda wishing myself Happy Holidays which is nice. I like it.
jesus christ
Shot this “Happy Holidays” video last week.
If you can… check it out.
Thanks!
http://link.brightcove.com/services/link/bcpid900837105/bclid900668361/bctid1320122347
I have to think that now that I’m in socal some of the best things about the holidays are vegas, drugs, and boozing. That’s pretty much all I have scheduled.
good video IHYP. I hate young people too.
@Somegosoftly, I like your blog and your holiday plans don’t sound half bad. I’m gonna go visit family this year I think.
As traumatic as that can be, I think it’s more traumatic not to see them. It’s like checking in with your parole officer or something. It’s stressful and it can be dangerous, but it’s better than the alternative.
Merry Christmas, if you celebrate that one.
I really like seeing my wife’s family during the winter holidays… they are a great group of people and they really make the holiday special.
The problem is that my wife and I don’t really want to buy each other Christmas presents this year. Mainly because we are tired of the blatant consumerism associated with the holiday.
The problem is that when we go celebrate Christmas at my inlaws’ house, if my wife and I don’t buy each other several gifts, it makes us look really cheap. I guess I can just explain that we already have enough stuff and don’t need any more nick-nacks…
What to do…
Hey Tab.. I know how that is. If you don’t get your wife something shiny they’ll think you’re broke or don’t care about her.
I’ve always thought it was better to do something after Christmas with your girlfriend/wife anyhow. Christmas and all the gifts can be such a letdown so its nice to have something to do after. Plan a vacation or something and tell them you guys got each other that.
Thats all i’ve got.
Tab,
We ALWAYS exchange our Christmas gifts to each other privately and in our own home, because it’s really sweet and intimate and a special time for just us. Then we go see the family and open theirs to us and ours to them. It works for us! Start a new tradition. Your wife will love it!
Lisa
before this turns into helpful tips with heloise let’s get back to some real holiday woes. Ok go.
I dont’ have any real holiday woes, but umm…I”m at home right now, and my mom was all like “yo, how is the diet going, you still know you have to lose 20 pounds right?”….of course if I lose 20 pounds, I’ll have to check into an eating-disorder clinic, but it’s what mama wants, and god forbid that I don’t look like a bollywood actress, so it can be easier for her to sell me on the Internet in exchange for 10 cows..soo…what was I saying? Oh yeah, it’s better to give than to receive, so if mom wants me to drop 20LBs, I say, where are the laxatives?
Merry Fucking Christmas
Merry Chistmas!
I love your blog. Thanks for making me laugh.
Thanks for quoting Kilgore Trout.
I know I’m commenting on a very old post, but I’ve read “apart” misused many times in my otherwise amusing readings of your writings. “Apart” means separate. “A part” means, well, “a part of”. So in this sentence: “I wonder if the Holidays losing their meaning is apart of a larger loss of meaning and purpose in our lives.” I’m pretty sure you mean “a part of a larger loss”, rather than separate from this loss.
I’m the grinch. Jeez.