I'm sitting here, December 22nd, shorts and t-shirt, outside, sun hiding behind cloud, drinking 5th cup of coffee, writing grammatically incorrect sentences, stomach clenching,

And I'm trying to figure out when I stopped liking Christmas. 

Yes.  I said it.  I do not like Christmas.  It does not inspire any pink coloration in my cheeks.  It does not make me feel good about the world.  It is, at this point, an excuse for a two and a half week break from school. 

When was it?  When did this happen?  I obviously couldn't have always felt like this.   Certain memories rattle to the surface, echoing like holiday gunfire.  Other changes are not so definite, cannot be dressed up in a red suit, but are instead gradual and hard to pick up on.

I thought about coming up with a top ten list.  Then, realizing that ten is a large and daunting number, tasting sour like the time we tried to add rum to our egg nog.  (Apparently there is some sort of recipe you're supposed to follow)  Then, I thought about division, twos and threes, leaving numbers like 5 and 3.3333333333333333333333333333333333333333333333333333333333333

But those numbers are just as arbirtrary as the 25th is.  So I will begin to enumerate, and I will end when I run out of ideas. 

When I stopped liking Christmas:

1.  Yes, Jonathon, there is no Santa Claus.  You know the Easter Bunny and the Tooth Fairy?  Those are bullshit too.

Recently, my friends were appalled when I offered this quip to them:  "When I have kids, (Ha!) I will immediately tell them there is no Santa Claus."  My friends called me jaded, heartless, too pragmatic to enjoy this magical month.  Later, I presented the idea to my students to write about in their journals.  Perhaps one out of every fifteen kids agreed with my logic, the rest called me a horrible person.

I was five or maybe six.  We lived on Williams Road, in a house with an electric fence and a tire swing.  My neighbor, Kate Gifford,  told me that my parents were feeding me a lie.  Indignant, I called her bluff and told her it was impossible.  Santa Claus had to be real, because the whole world could not possibly be engaging in such a believable conspiracy.  So I confronted my parents.  I was a curious, precocious, stubborn child.  After an attempt to brush away my newfound fears, I persisted and demanded an honest answer.  My mother relented and told me that indeed - there was no fat man that brought tidings of joy. 

I cried, pounded my fists into the carpet, kicked the walls, screamed the few curses that I knew.  I accused my parents of an unforgivable crime and promised to never trust them again.  I always figured that every child reacted like this.  After talking to my friends, I found myself very much corrected.  According to them, the much more traditional reaction to news of this magnitude when something more like, "Oh.  Ok. - So what are you getting me this year?" 

Was I that wrapped up in the lie?  Or, was it because I found out so early and was blindsided?  My foundation had been shaken, my naivety exposed in all its naked pink ugliness.  I only remember being very deeply affected.

After all, every time I had received something from Santa that I did not like, I cursed his name aloud in the presence of my parents.  I wrote letters, baked cookies, imagined that I was being very good for a very selfish purpose.

That's why I will never allow my children to live inside of this facade.  It teaches ingratitude and deception.  Looking back, I know how hard my parents worked to get me all of the designer toys that I desired.  At the time, my mother didn't even have a job, and my father worked for a company named "Zeeb."  How much money could that have possibly brought in?  They went into months of debt to provide me with the presents that I thought were coming from another source.  Maybe if I would have known all along, I would have been more grateful for the red and white wrapped reminders of my parents love.

So the magic is gone.  I want to believe in something grandiose, something elegant and everlasting.  Instead, I remember those red-eyed mornings where I must have crushed my parent's spirits.

2.  Taking the Christ out of Christmas.

I stopped being religious about eight years ago.  Even for years after that, I still recognized the 12 days of Christmas as leading up to an event worth celebrating:  The birth of Christ.  This time of year, if anything, was at least a celebration of a miracle.  Miracles are nice to believe in when you have a very limited gag reflex. 

Now, as a heathen, X-Mas doesn't carry the same weight (about 7 lbs, 6 oz. - Jesus had a fairly average birthweight).  Plus, I am surrounded by varying different beliefs.  My roommate is Jewish - and while there are no menorahs in our house, I like reading about the different customs.  Two students in my 2nd hour missed last Thursday because they were celebrating Eid, a Muslim holiday.  One student told me the story of how the cops came and told them they were not allowed to sacrifice the goat that goes along with their traditions.  Another Christian student decided to take issue with that, and I politely walked away.  I wanted to ask the Christian student why sacrificing a goat was any more ridiculous then believing that three old guys walked through the desert following a star, while a virgin mother was blasting out a benign savior.  Instead, I shook my head and realized that this time of year has just become one more excuse for people to insist that they're right and follow that belief into war.

3.  Ad Nativity Nauseum

I think that "Simply Having a Wonderful Christmas Time" is the most disgusting song ever created, and yet it is as ubiquitous this time of year as blinking lights and holy nights.  The only good Christmas song is "Merry Christmas Emily," by Cracker.  And thats because it is not at all about Christmas.

4.  Palm Trees and Sunshine

When I moved to Florida, I gladly left the cold behind forever.  I could no longer stand scraping my windshield, using the outdoors as a convenient refrigerator for my beer, or wearing two pairs of socks.  Now, I very rarely wear socks, but of course this time of year doesn't feel the same.  After all, aren't the holidays automatically associated with snow and  jack frost nipping at my hardening nipples?  It's noontime in December, and the sun is casting a warm light on my face.  I'm thinking about taking my shirt off.  Christmas is the last thing on my mind.

5.  Reunions

As already said, there is one upside to this time of year:  The break from work that accompanies it.  So at least every year in the near future, I will climb onto a plane full of people in their eighties, and hurtle towards the north at breakneck speed.  Noels have simply become the background music to the scene where I finally get to see my family and friends again.  Of course, this is not a negative aspect - I'm getting to it.  The Holiday season is just this arbitrary excuse to get together with the people I love and miss.  But its more than that - its a distraction.  It would be nice to just see all of these people without some larger, looming event taking away everybodies attention.  Why can't I just go back to Michigan for no reason other than a reunion?  Why does there have to be some greater reason?

6.  Empty Wallet Tidings

Last year was nice, because teachers at my school got a bonus around this time for raising FCAT scores or some shit.  So, I had some money to spend on people.  Because lets face it - thats what it has come down to:  What am I gonna get for everybody?  I absolutely loath shopping, and even if I didn't, I have no clue what anybody wants.  Last year, I got my sisters gift cards to Victoria Secret.  Seriously?  That's bordering on perversion.  But, my mom said they would like it.  I think I got my father a sweatshirt for the 9th year in a row.  My mother?  I have no idea.  What can I provide for these people?  A romantic would say that us being together is gift enough, but that is incredibly false.  If I could wrap up my love in a bow and present it to my sisters, they might still look for the price tag.  That's making them sound materialistic - that's not my intention.  All I'm saying is that I don't have the money or the knowledge to get anybody the gifts I would really love to give them, and that hurts my feelings.  As for the gifts I receive, they just make me feel like a shitty person.  My mother called me from the mall a couple of weeks ago and asked what I would like for Christmas.  I honestly had no answer for her.  There is nothing that I can think of that I desperately need.  I actually wish that I could receive no gifts, because I'm not so sure I deserve any.



This whole blog makes me sound like a long-winded, cynical asshole.  Maybe I don't like what Christmas has become for me.  Maybe I am not that happy that in three days I will be sitting around a tree with a somewhat forced smile upon my face.  But I want to get one thing straight:

At around midnight tonight, I will be back at my parents house to see the friends and family I love so much - and I couldn't be happier about that.

I hope to see you there.

Happy Holidays!