It might be 228 days until Christmas, but really only 114 days until Christmas season. Yeah, I’m that person who breaks out the Christmas music and decorations in early September (unless the impossible occurs, and the Orioles are actually in contention, in which case Christmas season bumps back to the end of baseball season.) I love everything about Christmas season — the tree, the decorations, the music, the lights, the movies, even the crowds at malls.
This, by the way, is admittedly the least cool thing about me. Most people, and especially people my age, take pride in their scorn for the pro-Christmas folks like me. Some complain about the over-commercialization of the holiday. Some just roll their eyes at the pure sappiness of the whole thing. Others claim that while they have no problem with Christmas, they hate the fact that “it seems to start earlier each year.” Yeah, whatever. (Sidenote: Obviously, some people don’t celebrate Christmas for religious reasons, which is clearly something entirely different from the too-cool-for-school Christmas haters).
There are cool holidays to like, and they are generally the “friend” holidays (Halloween, New Years Eve, even St. Patrick’s Day) rather than the “family” holidays (Christmas, Thanksgiving, Easter). Me? I love ‘em all. But Christmas is the only one that needs defending. No, I don’t mean some kind of Bill O’Reilly-style Christmas defense. First off, that man is a moron. Secondly, he believes the “war on Christmas” has to do with increasing secularization of society. Like I said, he’s a moron. Naa… the backlash against Christmas has nothing to do with secularization vs. religiosity. It’s just that its always been cool to break with the conventions of society, and when you add in this generation’s love of cynicism, you don’t really get a Christmas-friendly environment. At least in terms of style points.
I decided to give up on all those style points some time ago. Sure, for a while, I’d join in on that “starts earlier every year” stuff, but even then I was secretly searching for radio stations playing Christmas music. But really, why bother? I caved.
On kind of a sidenote, I’m kind of a sociology/demography nut, and I love reading about and speculating on attitudinal trends. I was a bit skeptical (and wrote about it) a couple months ago when I read that Bobos — the upscale Whole-Foods shopping, authenticity-craving urbanites with a social conscience — were starting to cede turf to some other group called neo-yuppies. It sounded to me like an unnecessary update — just a new term to learn. But, I looked it up. Turns out neo-yuppies are the ones responsible for taking Christmas down the social ladder. Yup, with a whole lotta “starts too early” and a little bit of overcommercialization arguments for good measure, they have made it socially unappealing to enjoy the Christmas season. Just knowing this is a bit of a mini-victory. After spending my Christmas-loving days being “that person” that causes everyone with an ounce of taste or class to roll their eyes, now I had a a group that could inspire my own eye-rolling. Oh, you’re the person who gets mad at everyone who listens to Christmas music in their car… how wonderfully cynical.
So, Monday night. My neighbor came over to my house. We bought some Margarita mix to celebrate Cinco de Mayo (neither one of us felt like dealing with the crowds at the bars), and we started talking about holidays. I thought about soft-pedaling my Christmas argument, but I decided instead to test my new preemption strategy. My neighbor is young, well-educated and urban, so she serves as the perfect test case. This time, instead of admitting that Christmas is my favorite holiday, while mentally preparing my defense, and anticipating the slow nod, I jumped right in. Point A: I love Christmas and I’ll start celebrating it as early as I want; Point B: All these silly little hipsters think they’re so clever and unconventional for hating people who do that; Point C: Said hipsters will one day be remembered as a social group of this generation, much like the Beamer-driving status-obsessed yuppies of the ’80s.
On one hand, it livened up the conversation, and I seemed to get a bit more respect than that usual slow nod. On the other hand, turns out her favorite holiday is Halloween. Eh, can’t win ‘em all.
114 days and counting…
