what hypocrisy

hypocrisy (n.) a feigning to be what one is not or to believe what one does not.

Thankgiving is gone.

The polishing of leftovers has wound down.

It could not have gone away fast enough, because we must make room for the next consumer driven holiday to kick into full swing. The turkey wasn't even thawed, much less pre-ordered by the time one of the local radio stations had begun spinning all of the holiday favorites. In fact Starbucks, that tenacious wet Gremlin of a company, started the holiday season by November 2nd.

More on that later.




Having the supposed minority opinion around the holidays (PC code word for Christmas foremost and Hanukkah as the occasional afterthought) makes it imperative to shut the hell up as everything begins to glimmer with predictable end of the year glow, marked by sale signs, Santas, and sanctimony. The holiday specials with the celebrity of the minute decked out in all of their shot-in-the-middle-of-August red and white (pardon!) gaiety are aired in defiance to quality and taste.

Christmas is one of those things that leech itself underneath the surface of your consciousness from a young age. It usually begins with an innocent enough visit to some shopping mall knock-off of this old mystical philanthrope lard ass whose story reads a lot like the boogieman with a stable full of pets addicted to meth. It's ingenious to plant all of these lies into children, whether it's Claus or Christ, because they are apt to believe absolutely anything they're told.

For me the trouble arises when I try to stop playing contrary and nestle up amongst all of the Pagan baggage the season offers. Giving in means hearing the Christians babble on about the reason for the season, almost as if they "won". Meanwhile the cash registers ding, the credit card rates sky rocket, and the tinsel glimmers almost gold, emitting the true reason, which is to enter the next quarter sitting pretty. Every year, it's the same thing, as our culture's over-emphasis on consumption and materialism continues milking that same cash cow of Jesus' supposed b'day. I would love to see the same fuss being done for Martin Luther King, Jr's holiday which is right around the corner and maybe serves us up a single day off from work and a poor whimper of register action. Why not combine the two and have a greater big ol' gift giving, shopping extravaganza?

It's like a disease, this Christmas thing, when under the command of tradition and expectation people either do too much or too little, or in my case adapt enough or spoil everybody's good time. A drive through any neighborhood in the greater West Palm area will demonstrate that even some Jewish folks feel the need to get in on the gauche holiday home decor action donning their strings of blue lights across their gutters. We hike up our electric bills, chop down forests, add to landfills, and clutter up one another's life in some misfire effort to do what? Perhaps to find redemption for a year's worth of relationship negligence. Maybe this is just Valentine's Day without the sex.

But seriously, I really love this time of year: the graying of the clouds, the chilling of the air, the hum of the heater, and the fall of the first snow. The seasonal change is an absolute necessity and a validation of the arc of life, and the normal gloominess is more honest than what we get where I live. Florida has very little resemblance to any of this and I have to stir up memories of my youth to retain some grasp. It's not all bad, right? There is something to be said for the strains of a Christmas song quelling up inside your head that first time of several hundred you'll hear it. Maybe a kiss under the mistletoe is sweeter and softer than one under a bare ceiling. Perhaps hot chocolate is better with a group of friends. And there is something to be said for hearing from an old friend out of the blue in the brevity of an end of the year card.

I think the problem is that this is all a manufactured reality, a dictated normalcy.

The first week of November I was sitting inside a Starbucks that looks very much like the one in your hometown. This has sadly not been an uncommon evening during this past year, as an obscene amount of my bank account has paid some latte maker's rent. Halloween had just dissipated, and what should appear all across the windows of this location of that coffee-music-dishes-dessert-games establishment but Christmas paraphernalia. And holiday tunes were the entirety of the playlist. See, it's a disease and this year it consumed the entire month of November. But I know how it works, they were not piping in those tunes to enhance some advanced holiday spirit. No, this was a backhanded means to shuffle Christmas CDs and other seasonal product off the shelves.

I often group Starbucks together with Walmart, but I have had a much easier time boycotting the latter. On the other hand people seem to denigrate my distaste for entering those Starbucks establishments, which I have taken to coping with quietly at this point, by countering with the like of comments about how well they treat their employees.

That's not really the point. They represent a bigger problem of the mono-culturalization of our society, wherein the biggest variety between different Starbucks locations is its placement in proximity to William-Sonoma or the Pottery Barn. I suppose this place is there to offer a false sense of home, but they are as inconsistent as they are insincere. There's even something about each and every Starbucks employee that I have ever encountered that harkens back to "The Stepford Wives". But I keep going in, slapping down the cash, and guzzling their adequate beverages. I think rationalizing is the instant response to doing the wrong thing, so I won't bother doing so.

I appreciate going against the grain. This is why I understand when my brother-in-law swerves to Judaism in December and my father-in-law closes himself up away from all the hype like a modern day Scrooge. I realize that I will still dress up that artificial tree we bought last year, move the Christmas songs back into the music library, and give into more and more trips to Starbucks with friends and family. I give into my reluctance, not because my principles and perspectives have no merit, but because sometimes it's better to not rock the boat or be a killjoy, and to let majority rule.

Bah-Humbug!