The "Hallmark Effect" of the Holidays | Perspectives

When I was a child I looked forward to the holidays for the sole purpose of not having to go to school for extended days, and for all the holiday cartoons and TV specials that the networks aired. 

As an adult, I hate the holiday season starting from November and ending somewhere towards the end of February.

The holidays are really stressful as an adult.

 The cold weather makes it harder to get up in the morning, the hot water and continuous heating of the home is costly; waiting for your car to warm up requires extra time spent, which means you need to leave the house a little bit earlier if you don't have a self-starter car (which I don't), or to clean off your windshields or shovel your tires out... but none of these things are even the major stresses of the holidays for me.

For me, it's the expenses of the months in November and December. I don't know why, but the holidays are just really expensive (even if you skimp out on the gift giving). Thank God you can start filing your income taxes as early as January because I'm sure people need to pay off their holiday debts (it's something to look forward to if you have kids to claim and are in a low enough income bracket to claim all those credits and deductions)!

The expense comes from the holiday dinners (if I was still in NYC, I'd just get it cater from Boston Market instead!); the overwhelming and expensive traveling, hotel rooms, gas, car repairs/maintenance, insurance, presents, decoractions, plane tickets, etc. — even if you don't give anything but love, it still cost money!

Retailers try to suck you in with their big sales, like 65" LED TVs, even though you have a perfectly fine TV at home and you don't need another one, but at that price you want to buy it just for the great price because of the fear of missing out on such a "great bargain". Not to mention the holiday aisle at any retailer has adorable displays of every character possible, from Santas to snowmen and everything in-between. 

Everything seems so "reasonably" priced. 

Oh, that beautiful holiday centerpiece is only $19.99! That adorable Santa ornament of him lifting a bar weight, only $14.99 — that isn't too much! 

Everything seems so fairly priced until you get to the checkout, and when the register totals it out to over $100, you're wondering what the hell did you buy!? There's only like 7 items in your cart! 

You don't want to look like a jerk and return something because you spent more than you wanted to, so instead you go home not even enjoying what you bought, and counting all the dollars you could have saved if you didn't buy this or that. Even if you do return it, it's usually when you're already home and realized that it's better to return it, which means going back to the store.

I could go on and on about the whole commercial aspect of the fall/winter holiday season, starting with Halloween and ending after Valentine's Day... but instead I'll just leave off with one more rant, the price of traveling. 

Traveling is freakin' EXPENSIVE!!! 

Airlines charge you those ridiculous prices because they know it's important to you that you're there (and "there" is usually wherever your family is all gathered at), but who wants to drive for all those hours in bad weather and put that kind of mileage on their car anyway!? There for me is New York City. Do you know how expensive it is to fly home to NYC during the holidays!?

I hate the holidays. That's freakin' capitalism for you... a holiday like Christmas, that's suppose to be about religion, has turned into spending money instead. A "holiday" literally is a compound word of "holy" and "day" — but it's unofficially become the Hallmark branding holidays instead. 

I have never been in the "holiday spirit" as an adult.

I totally understand where Scrooge is coming from (minus the whole miser thing). All that fake cheer and happy holidays crap, when you're stampeding on people to get the early bird specials at Walmart right after you've finished eating a meal about how thankful you are. Oh, please!

I really want to take a giant candy cane and beat the jolly crap out of a sugar plum fairy.

Bah-humbug!