Mad World

"So this is christmas?"... With the risk of sounding corny, and facing copy right infringement and all that... "And what have you done?"...
And that's just it in'it... Cus the more I think about it... The more "Nothing" jumps to mind...

I can try to oppress it. But it's like trying to ignore a Jack Russel Terrier who's just been told it's goin for a walk.
Try as you might, it's going to stand there, jumping up and down all day long, untill you either give in... Or go mad, and have an epileptic fit, due to all the motion flickering in front of your eyes...

I'm guessing giving in, is the smarter option. Just like everyone else in this, at times, Godforsaken holiday. I mean. I seem to recall this being all about family. And food. Possibly some little guy in a cryb, who I've never met. But apparently everyone's really pleased he was born in that cryb.
Weather this is because we're glad it was him and not us, I cant say, but it does sound like a very human reason to like anybody who'd been through a hard time.
Someone had to have a hard time. And as long as it's you, and not me, I'm happy... Sounds about right.

Anyway, it seems to be less and less about that anymore. Now it's about who can annoy their neighbours with the biggest set of lights on their house. Who can buy the biggest turky. Who can buy the biggest presents, and who has the biggest christmas tree...
All in all, the word "big" seems to play a rather large¹ part in the so-called christmas spirit lately.
Don't get me wrong, I don't dislike christmas. I find it rather enjoyable. But I find it equally laughable. Christmas does to people, what the colour red allegidly does to a bull.
Every one's gone barking mad these last few days, and if you didn't know this was apparently a happy holiday, one might be fooled to believe it was indeed the end of the world.
Everyone is pissy. The public transportation system is a joke, everything is suddenly all about money, and people are hoarding goods as though they were preparing for a nuclear war...

And yet, apparently, this is the happiest time of the year, and all this fuss, is in preperation for one little day.

Only we, as the supreme and all knowing race that we are², would invent a day that takes 2 months of planning, puts the entire world on edge, causes stress and suicides, financial ruin, divorses, breaks up families, causes people to steal, and generally makes everyone unhappy, and aggressive...
And try to market it as "a season of happiness", thinking this is indeed a pretty good idea...

But then, only we, as the supreme and all knowiing race that we are, believe in the lie. Which is probably why it works...

I guess we have this tendancy, as a species, to try and compensate for quiality, with quantity.
It might not be good. But at least it's big!
This seems to be the universal standard, on which we opperate.

This, of course, leads me back to myself³. Being bi-cultural, we have two heriatages to pull upon, and therefore, about twice the ammount of holidays...
Or we would have, if anyone in the family really cared about all that.
As it stands, we just have two christmas'.
One the 24th. And one the 25th.
Which is funny really, as both cultures apparently do christmas, to celebrate the above mentioned little boy, and how he was born in a cryb, next to what I can only assume to be a mule, and two people, who wished that they'd had enough bloody money to pay for a hotel room. Cryb's are usually located in barns, and they're not known to be the warmest of places in december.

This is, of course, of no importance, as all historical texts, actually point out, that this little boy wasn't born in december. But somewhere around may.
It was a lot warmer, with the possibility of a pleasant breeze. Maybe a little rain.

"But why do we have christmas then?" I hear you ask?⁴
Simple. It's cold. It's miserable. Each day has about 6 hours of sunligt, and it rains all the bloody time...
If we didn't have something to look forwards too, it'd still be like it is now. People would mill about being angry and mean, stealing and buying, and generally ruining their lives... But without the so called "light at the end of the tunnel", there'd be nothing stopping them from carrying on like this, well into febuary.

I rather reckon civil war would break out, if it was ever allowed to go on for that long.

So consider Christmas a sort of buffer. A soft landing, at the end of a rather horrible fall towards the ground.

Hmh... Maybe it's not such a bad thing after all...?

Cheer's.
- The Bedlamite


¹ Sorry, I couldn't help myself.
² Read "Side tracking is an art form" if not already familiar with my view on human "evolution".
³ As do most my thoughts.
⁴ Even if you didn't, I'll assume you did anyway, as people might get the impression I was a bit mad, if I was just talking to myself like that...