Christmas spirit

I should feel festive, I suspect. I don't. The whole Christmas thing doesn't get to me. Maybe it has something to do with the fact that I'm a Buddhist. Bad one but still, the religious aspect doesn't reach me and the whole peace, love, family , as the vox populi has it, what Christmas celebrate (1). Of course, the peace, love, family is demonstrated by maniacal shopping. I mean, I like gifts, especially those that lack the element of surprise – this year I know that I'll get two pairs of jeans, meaning that I'll be halfway decently (2) dressed until I lose more weight (3). I don't like surprises, they tend to mean a sweatshirt in candy pink with cute satin appliques (blaaaargh; I'm getting that one too, mother bragged what cool stuff she bought for me)(4). But... well, I go grocery shopping and I need to pass through crowds with maniacal faces who are scourging the shops for anything giftable because gifts have to be. And I, a random passer-by, need to be afraid that I might get bitten and infected with Christmas rabies despite having most of my gifts ready since August.

And then there's my mother. She's that sort of indefinable believer in 'something bigger than us' although when directly confronted, she denies any sort of religious inclinations because everybody knows that religion is an irrational product of insane mind, despite its cultural impact. As such, every year, she digs out the crib, angel figures and various dangly shiny crap to plague the house, listens to Christmas Masses on the radio (I mean, music, not the services, church services are booooring), sighs deeply how oh-so-exhilarating it is and I feel like headdesking.

I know I know, I'm whiny. I admit it. The humankind just irritates me these days... I'd love to sit at home alone and read and knit. Alas, I can't.


(1)This is a country populated rather by fierce atheists and equally fierce ignorants than by Christians. The latter do as they fancy but going to church is not that marketable as to be widespread and annoying.
(2)well-dressed is fine with me but just too time and energy consuming to bother with.
(3)enabling me to wear the stuff now living at the back of the wardrobe, bought when I was 25 kilos younger.
(4)this is nowhere near borderline decently dressed.