Christmas Makes Me Sick!

Literally.

I don't want to rain on anyone's Christmas parade, winter formal or other holiday festival, but this is really an awful time of year in many respects -- from the crap weather, to insipid holiday music and other lame entertainment programming, to the disingenuous "war" between the secular and the spiritual (NOTE: Christmas materialism beat the hell out of religion-based Christmas, itself a dubious proposition, a LONG time ago).

Then there's the general social assumption that everyone should be "happy" or "merry." What a canard! The real emotional currency of this time of year is anxiety, but few are forthright about it (or delightfully blase enough to admit it). Anxiety is part and parcel of the American "pursuit of happiness." The very notion of a pursuit necessarily entails some anxiety that comes with risk-taking and striving for that which is presently unattainable. Otherwise, we'd be strolling toward happiness.

Personally, the worst thing about Christmas is the fact that I routinely catch a cold or something resembling the flu. Almost without fail, my head pulsates with sinus pressure and breathing is something less than natural and pleasant.

On a really fine winter's day, inasmuch as we have winter in Sacramento, there is healthy serving of phlegm.

Of course, I know that I should get a flu shot. But I keep hearing all those stories about vaccine shortages and needy infants and seniors on the brink of death. As a 21st Century American, I have been formally and legally acculturated to sacrifice on behalf of the young and the aged. Indeed, for most everyone between the ages of 18 and 65 (soon to be 67), payroll deductions and beneficent government expenditures tangibly manifest this sacrifice.

I suspect that the real reason for my annual malady is the juxtaposition of my biological entity with others in artificially HOT shopping venues. This even applies to outdoor malls, where individual stores feel compelled to put the thermostat somewhere just short of 100 degrees (that's Farenheit, for you Canadians and Europeans). Parents compound their contributions to the hothouses of bacteria, virii and other assorted microorganisms by bringing their children unto those premises surrounding the sacred altar of the cash register.

To badly paraphrase Holmes (the jurist, not the poet), "Seasonal parasitical illnesses are the price we pay for living in a society driven by the anxiety to be simultaneously materialistic and cozy warm."

God bless us, everyone!