Top 5 Things I Hate About the Holiday Season

5. Halloween.

aka Boot Camp for Greedy Young Consumers. Is it really a good idea to promote the idea that if you show up on someone's doorstep and demand something, they're obligated to give it to you? Do we really need to ingrain a deeper sense of entitlement into the collective psyche of our next generation? Maybe I'm just bitter because I was always the kid whose candy bag got confiscated at the X-ray machine because some jack-o-lantern hid a needle in my laffy taffy! No - that's not it. Halloween is dumb - playing dress up and begging for candy is not a holiday.

4. How Thanksgiving gets sandwiched between "More Sugar!" and "More Stuff!"

Thanksgiving is my favorite holiday. As a kid it was just because it was my birthday, but even now that birthdays have lost the sheen they once had, Thanksgiving is still my favorite. No one buying each other gifts they don't really want to give, great food and family gatherings, remembering the greatness of our Creator... Thanksgiving has gotten the shaft by getting stuck between the crappy candy holiday and the consumer driving (not driven) marketing blitz that has most of us ignoring the real Reason for the Season.

3. Black Friday

Just the fact that we've given this phenomena a name reveals that so much is wrong with our society. I wonder, what will the future's historians read into this bit of Americana long after we're gone? Having said that, I must confess, I'm being coerced into a 4 AM line for a miter saw next week. (Which I'm mentally justifying with the thought that I've put off buying the saw for a long time because they're so dang expensive, I really do have a lot of use for one, and by lodging this public complaint.)

2. Visitor giveaway trinkets that get marketed to churches.

Hate is probably too strong a word here, but I do not want to give my students little bookmarks with urban myths about candy canes and mistletoe. Their Christmas will not miss your baby-Jesus-scented-magnet or Bethlehem star pencil topper. Like I said, hate is too strong a word for this one, but these things are really annoying.

1. The annual "Happy Holidays" vs. "Merry Christmas" debates.

If you're a Christian and somebody says "Happy Holidays" - did it really hurt your feelings? Was Jesus really left out of his own birthday party by that statement - or is he left out when we spend money we don't have to buy crap we don't need while he sleeps on the street and starves to death all over the world? Come on church, we can do better than this.