Christmas is the most wonderful time of the year....well, it is for most people. For me, Christmas is a lot like Game of Thrones. Everyone else talks about, and from what I hear, it sounds pretty cool, but I've never actually experienced it for myself.
I grew up Jewish, so I never really celebrated Christmas. My dad's side tried to implement a type of discount Christmas, but it never lived up to the hype of the real thing; the zeal and overall magic that many people associate with the holiday just didn't exist at my Christmas gatherings. It was more just seeing a bunch of family members that I almost never encounter in my life, and eventually getting annoyed by them and waiting for my parents do leave and mercy kill this awful get together, so for all intense of purposes, I've never celebrated a real, honest to God Christmas.
Instead of Christmas, my brothers and I celebrated Hannukah as kids. Hannukah is a holiday that so many people don't give a damn about, that you probably didn't even know that was how it is supposed to be spelled. I mean, I celebrate the damn thing, and I'm not even sure if I spelled it correctly. There might be a mystery letter in there for all I know.
Sure, eight gifts sounds great on paper, but in practice, it can get a bit messy. The first day or two is always pretty great, but by the fourth or fifth day, the gifts get pretty mundane and underwhelming. Thanks, Dad, I've always wanted a Kit-Kat bar. A crappy pool toy in December? A 3D puzzle?! How did they know just what I wanted, he thought to himself in disillusionment and disappointment. It just kind of gets dragged out at that point. I could go on, but you get the point by now.
It was even worse going to school.
During those winter break holiday parties, we would gather round and watch Christmas themed movies, while eating Christmas themed food, inside of a room filled to the brim with Christmas decorations. I would've been fine with it if I wasn't forced to watch "Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer" eight million times; that's something that should only be seen once, and then subsequently sent to the eternal firepits of Satan for how awful that cartoon truly is. It was a master class in making Jews feel left out, and it certainly didn't disappoint.
I was always a bit of an outcast during Christmas season. I was seen a weird for not really caring about the holiday, and in all honesty, all the attention Christmas gets has really just fueled my undying hatred for the corporate capitalist cash grab of a holiday, but I digress. In the end, as a Jew, I don't give a damn about Christmas. It's a thing that exists, and that's really the extent of my feelings about it.
