Fake Plastic Trees

Christmas, or rather, this time of year, is a subjective era. It is what you make it out to be.

I find that if you bad mouth Christmas, people will get offended. Not because they're Christian, you're going against their beliefs, none of that. It's something else.

People take Christmas very personally. I for one like Christmas. It makes me want to be close to people. But again, at the same time, it's like going to the prom. This is it. Your only chance. You've thought about this night your whole high school career thus far and nothing should go wrong.

Guess what, it does. And both my proms turned out to be horrible because of that way of thinking. The first one because of extenuating circumstances, the second one was my fault.

I hype Christmas up to be a failure . . . and it turns out okay, better than I had thought. I pay homage to the old anti-consumerist ideals of my teenage years, but I don't beat a dead horse, or reindeer, in this case. I try to be as low key and "with the flow" as I can be because I (shhh) secretly want December 25th to be magical.

That's the truth. That's what everyone wants.

That's why it's such a weird time. There's heightened stress, heightened want of love, pheromones reign high, disappointment, happiness, etc. The collective unconscious of the West is creating a gingerbread deck of cards that can fall at the flick of a wrist for some people . . . people like me.

I want the big family get-together. I want the girlfriend who I'm sure will be my wife to stand next to me in the photo. I want my brother to accept me for who I am and to stand on the other side of me. I want my parents to be together, to have not divorced, and to have the tree in the background, with both the ornaments I gathered at my dad's house and my mom's house over the years adorned on the most glorious tree you could imagine. I want my extended family to be in the picture as well, and I want all of the family politics (each side hates the other) to not exist. I want my dad to also accept me and to have that fatherly hand on my shoulder, so that when I looked at that Christmas family dinner photo I'd know that was the year my dad came to understand the boy he raised into a man. I want all of that.

All of those don't exist, though. My house is broken.

And because of that . . . I don't want anything.

That way I'll be happy with this fucking holiday.

Nine Inch Nails -- "The Four of Us Are Dying"