Christmas -- Seasonal Obscurities and Deception

Toward the end of every year, millions of Americans congregate to celebrate Christmas; a farcical holiday established before basic science was known, and maintained because parents recurrently promised gifts to future generations of children. From tales of a corpulent man who slides down people's chimneys while they are asleep to gaggles of intoxicated dullards quaffing pints of alcohol-infused eggnog before incoherently squabbling with the in-laws, Christmas is a strange holiday dedicated to celebrating Jesus' conception on December 25.

Jesus' birth is a strange story containing scientifically-implausible details that, in modern times, would be presented on the news with a police investigation and a potential consultation on the Dr. Phil show. Approximately 2000 years ago, an omnipotent God nonconsensually impregnated a teenage "virgin" so His son could be willingly tortured and nailed to a cross. According to biblical logic, a benign God cannot forgive mortals for their wrongdoings until His son has been brutally murdered. Thus, to celebrate the human sacrifice's birthday, bickering relatives gather around a cramped dinner table to eat an assortment of foods and exchange last-minute gifts.

To honor the Three Wise Men, who travelled 9000 miles to deliver gifts to a toddler they have never met, parents fabricate an intricate lie that an exceptionally obese, bearded man illegally breaks into millions of homes to deliver presents to financially-stable households; a lie that does not ignite any additional excitement but promises an eventual heart-break when children discover the beloved holiday mascot does not exist. And because children have no emotional control, the impending tantrum will be filled with tears, disappointment, and a couple snot bubbles, as they learn that adults are usually lying to them.

Christmas music remains monotonous as the playlist has not significantly changed since last year, with every song following the same basic format of inappropriate undertones, purportless blubbering from ignorant children, or personify-ing random objects, such as reindeer or snowmen. Though some mild changes are made every year, my eardrums are incessantly badgered by the same inappropriate "classics" that everyone pretends to enjoy because they feel jovial and festive.

Some examples are:

• "Baby it's Cold Outside" -- a romantic duet about a noticeably nervous woman who insistently expresses her desire to go home, and a man who refuses to let her leave before slipping an unidentified drug into her booze.

• "I saw Mommy Kissing Santa Clause" -- nonsensical prattle of a young child who allegedly witnessed her mother having a secret affair with a fat stranger while her father was asleep, and expressed a concerning level of nontrauma, and even indifference, to the situation. Apparently, Santa wanted more than just the cookies on the plate that year.

• "I want a Hippopotamus for Christmas" -- a child doing what children do best: rambling about pointless topics that do not interest anyone, essentially announcing the only item on his Christmas list -- a hyper-territorial predator that will aggressively and ruthlessly kill everyone in the room.

Every song follows that same format, cumulatively magnifying the auditory irritation every year.

Christmas dinner is a mediocre feast containing a surfeit of moderately-edible dishes. Anyone who genuinely enjoys the dry blandness of a rubbery block of turkey should have their tastebuds thoroughly evaluated by a professional; Turkey tastes like an unevenly-seasoned cardboard box, often coated with a thick, salty sludge that tastes like my grandfather's foot sweat. One popular Christmas beverage is a frothy egg-and-milk concoction, but if eggnog were an adequately-marketable product, stores would sell it year-round instead of thirty-days-per-year, labeling it the fastest-expiring Christmas decoration that typically induces unwarranted flatulence. Candy Canes are striped peppermint-flavored sugar sticks that dreadfully remind me of my weekend job every time they unexpectedly prod the back of my throat.

Christmas lights are decorative fire hazards that wrap around nearby trees, fences, house gutters, and any other object that can support small lights -- occasionally people who have lost too many brain cells. Every hyper-enthused Christmas "decorator" genuinely believes their light orientation is particularly spectacular, and in some perplexing cases, people without plans will observe Christmas lights for hours like frozen deer mindlessly gazing into oncoming headlights.

Ugly sweaters are -- just as the name implies -- ugly. In a society overly-concerned with fashion, Americans dedicate an entire month to wearing women-repellant sweaters stamped with a hideously-doodled Christmas tree, reindeer, snowman, or another Christmas-themed object on a visually-unpleasant, but colorful, layout. Dedicating an entire month to wearing ugly sweaters would be as asinine as sporadically drinking canned gasoline labeled "Moist Sewage", but then again, some people drink eggnog so this could be a seasonal trend.

Despite the obscurities of the holiday, Christmas offers the opportunity to temporarily feign happiness and closeness in the form of alcohol, cheap gifts, and a slew of lies. And because nearly everyone depends on temporarily forgetting about the miserable monotonies of life, and adults do not bear enough courage to inform every child that Santa is just a seasonally-employed obese man at a shopping mall, Christmas will persistently recur like a herpes sore.