bah humbug

Actually I was going to title this one "fuck Christmas" but.. well.. I don't know. I'm trying to swear less. It's not going well..

I'm really fucking hating this time of year, as usual.

I'm not going to rant on about the rampant souless commercialism. The greedy, grubby, worship-the-almighty-fucking-dollar nature of the season.

Or the inappropriate Northern hemisphere decorations and accoutrements - it's summer here you dicks, we don't need sleighs and furred hats (although admittedly it's hardly summery in Christchurch at the moment).

Or even the fucking hideous music trotted out every year. Combining both the above rants, commercial shit about weather that just doesn't happen at this time of year.

My issues with Christmas this time are more internal. I just hate the whole gift thing. It's not that I hate giving or receiving gifts, I just never feel like I've a) deserved the gifts I get, or b) given appropriate/enjoyable/even-remotely-good gifts.

This is my own personal hell. Spending days wandering around shopping for gifts in the crowds and noise and smell and horror of this season is something that I find physically revolting and mentally numbing.

Doing all that for days without ever finding anything for anyone else that I'm even remotely happy with is just waggling around that knife already stuck deep in my guts.

So I don't give gifts much.

But I'm trying to get better. It feels like my soul is being crushed in a vice to spend so much time shopping, but I am trying.