Why Am I Always The Christmas Scrooge During This Insidious Holiday?

I always seem to be the Christmas Scrooge when Christmas comes around

Every year around this time it seems that I am unemployed, but that’s because I have a job that is seasonal. But the past year or so I wasn’t laid off at the end of the season because there was work for me to do, however, my hours were so low that I had to compensate with Employment Insurance (reporting my hours of work obviously – so don’t think I was scamming the system) to try and make ends meet.

This year business has been so slow that they gave me a seasonal layoff and because my hours were so low I wasn’t making that much pay, although I had enough hours to qualify for employment insurance (EI) my paychecks for the last couple of months were very small because of the lack of hours. What that ends up meaning is that my EI payments will be based on my earnings during those last few months which will result in a very small EI Payment every two weeks.

So now it’s all on the shoulders of my girlfriend to bring home the bacon and my tiny EI checks to pay the bills and so on. I’m holding out in hopes that they will call me back to work soon because I only have a few weeks left on my EI claim. After that runs out we’re 100% dependent on my girlfriend’s income until I find another job. So that’s one reason why I’ll be the Christmas Scrooge again this year. I don’t want to find another place to work because I really love the job I had and want to go back.

I know you’re thinking, “Why don’t you just get a job till they call you back?” Despite what they’re saying about unemployment rates being down, getting a job is still a challenge for me. Employers are looking for young and dumb, and I’m not young. I’m not a people person, in fact, I can’t stand dealing with people, especially a job where you have to cater to them. There are jobs I cannot do for moral and personal reasons and when you filter out all of those, you don’t have anything left to work with.

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Being broke really sucks

We can’t even afford to get anyone coal for Christmas this year and it really sucks when we get gifts from everyone else cause it makes us feel like we’re being a Christmas Scrooge. With the cost of food going through the roof and finances that were based on a two-person income, there’s just no way we can afford to buy gifts for friends and family. This would be so much easier if society would stop pushing its expectations on others.

Christmas gift-giving should be for the kids. Adults can buy whatever the fuck they want at any time of the year. To me, it’s just adults buying stuff for one another. I get that some people like that, but I know a lot of grown-ass people feel pressured into gift-buying for other grown-ass people because society says that’s what you have to do.

The way it should be is that if you’re invited to a x-mas party, then sure, this is a great time to exchange gifts. If you don’t think you can afford it, then you can uninvite yourself. Families should just buy gifts for their kids, and if they can afford it, the kids of their inner circle of friends and family, but not feel pressured by that inner circle. If you feel the need to get another adult a gift, don’t just assume that they have one for you, and definitely don’t make them feel like you are better than they are because you did. That’s just being an asshole.

We need to win the lottery

We don’t like being made out to be the Christmas Scrooge because we’re not rich enough to buy shit for everyone. If we won the lottery, then that would be a different story. We would love to be able to buy people gifts, but it would actually be something that they need, and if we actually won the lottery, we wouldn’t wait till Christmas to do that.

If we did win the lottery, we would take care of our inner circle. We would probably end up being the Christmas scrooge again because our inner circle would have what they needed already and just buying shit because it’s Christmas again returns me to my last statement about buying grown-ass people stuff that they can just get themselves any time of the year.

If anyone feels compelled to get us a gift for Christmas, get us a winning lotto ticket. That way we can pay off our loans and credit card debt and maybe, just maybe, buy you something for Christmas. If we don’t feel like being the Christmas Scrooge that is, LOL!

I do actually like the festive traditions, just not some of them

I know I am actually coming off as a Christmas Scrooge in this post, but the thing is that I actually enjoy the whole festive thing surrounding the holiday. The decorations especially, and that’s because my Mom just loved to decorate her home with Christmas decorations. When my Mom started to get her house decorated for Christmas it usually took her a few days and the results of all that time she put in made the house feel so festive. I miss that.

I will decorate my place with outdoor decorations in her memory because I know she would have loved to have seen them. Inside, not so much because we have two cats that would tear them apart and three dogs that would end up eating them. So to save us the hassle of keeping the pets away from Trees and decorations, we just don’t bother. Our living room is too small for a tree anyway.

The traditions I don’t like are the madhouse of shoppers flooding the stores trying to buy stuff for that one day of the year. Even though they had 364 days to do it, they choose to do it the last week before Christmas and end up clogging the isles of all the stores when you are just in there getting necessities not related to Christmas.

People are stealing and robbing people just so they can buy shit for somebody, or they’re just garbage people stealing because it’s easier this time of year because people are buying a lot of shit which makes it so much easier to rob from them. They’re the true Christmas Scrooges.

Conclusion…

I just hate what Christmas has become. When I was a kid, it was such a magical time of year. The Christmas stories about Santa coming in the middle of the night through the chimney to drop off Christmas gifts were so amazing to me. Those Christmas TV shows that would air every year had me glued to the TV, even though I’ve watched them many times already through the years. But now it’s gotten so commercial.

Christmas has become so saturated with greedy people, and Christmas commercials constantly nagging you to buy their crap. All this commercialism just sucks all of the joy out of the season nowadays. It’s constantly in your face and I guess that’s why I can be such a Christmas Scrooge lately because I’m just so sick of it all. It would be nice if we could all just go back to the traditions of the old days without constantly being drilled in the head to buy shit instead of being with those who matter to you.

If you’ve made it this far through my rant, thanks for taking the time to let me get that off my chest. I hope you have a very Merry Christmas or whatever it is you celebrate this time of year. Try not to be a Christmas Scrooge even though it’s hard not to be these days.

Cheers!