So, it's the start of that oh-so-wonderful holiday season. I'm a Grinchy type, for several reasons- retail, non-family-oriented, non-religious, etc. Here's a quick little timeline of just how enjoyable I find the holidays:
- Around Halloween: Walk past the xmas trees, garland, and other crap to maybe find some Halloween costumes or candy.
- Thanksgiving week: Black Friday! We love Black Friday! Hey, did you know Black Friday was coming? We'll play this same ad again 10 times during your show to remind you. If we didn't start playing the same crappy holiday music as last year (and the fifty before it) once Halloween passed, we'll start doing so now.
- Thanksgiving Day: Family visits were okay, but there was never really any thinks, it was just what you did for the day. When I ostracized myself from family functions, I would stay home... and I really liked the quiet time to myself.
- Black Friday: I worked these for about six years. I liked working them, it was a solid eight hours of work, kept busy, etc. Even back then, though, it reeked of greed, on both retail side and customer side. Sorry you got here too late, our stockpile of two hundred cheapass $30 DVD players is now out. You're right, your xmas is now ruined because you can't spend $50 on a different one. Sorry you weren't here to punch someone's lights out to get it when we opened at
5am 4am 2am8pm last night. - Post-Thanksgiving weekend: Waste the whole weekend putting up crappy scented candles, lights, tinsel, and other fluff that you'll gripe about not getting put up right. Enjoy the wintery cold putting up shit outside.
- Early December: More retail sales with ads printed back in October, which shows that same cheap merchandise and more griping about the inventory fairy not being able to magically summon that backordered-since-Black-Friday cheap-ass gift (once again ruining the holiday). Merry xmas vs. happy holidays and "Jesus is the reason for the season" crap (hint- he was born in May or August, depending on the source, and the holiday was moved to make it easier to convert pagans to christianity by following a holiday with similar themes). Waste half the day in schools getting ready for crappy holiday pageants filled with about five kids that can sing and 85 that can't.
- Xmas week: No, we still don't have that cheapass gift. Or half the rest of our store inventory. Yes, it's our fault your holiday is ruined because you didn't go shopping until now. Quit bitching and rush off to the kiddies dressed uncomfortably and singing horribly- we know yours is one of the five that can sing spectacularly, so you shouldn't miss it.
- Xmas eve day: Get up at the ass-crack of dawn to clean everything... after all, xmas would be totally ruined if the baseboards had spider webs! Run around in a frenzy half the day worrying about the two or three hours you're going to spend with friends later. Light the crappy-smelling candles to soak the house in a mixture of scents that leave the house smelling like the hallway of an apartment complex. Go to work and listen to more complaining about the shelves being bare and lines being long because you waited until every other store in a three-county radius was closed to try to do your holiday shopping.
- Xmas eve night: Invite over people you were complaining about the day before for the holiday festivities. Overstay welcome so others can't get to sleep at a decent hour for early-morning festivities the next day.
- Xmas day: Wake up early and look at all the pretties you got! You can't use them, though... gotta go to other holiday events first. Try and find room to enjoy the one gift you like (or take a nap once older) among the rest of the family that wants to do the same thing. Once the festivities have calmed, forget trying to do anything to escape or unwind, cuz everything's closed. Oh yeah, and remember that holiday pay you usually got? Because it's a Sunday, this is now a religious holday- you don't get paid anything... lucky you for working this year!
- December 26 and beyond: More retail greed for the day after Xmas now, and for some reason the shelves are still bare. Obviously shipping companies and retail workers were supposed to be working on xmas so you could exchange one of the two cheapass 30 dollar DVD players you got towards something you really wanted.
- Some time mid-January: Pick a blistering cold, windy, snowy weekend day removing the holiday decorations you put up. Bring the now-broken second cheap-ass 30 dollar DVD player back to the wrong store, and don't believe the employees that tell you it's another store's in-house brand. Go to that store with a bad attitude and complain about only getting 30 dollars for your broken cheap-ass DVD player that is currently $45, because you trashed the gift receipt.