There are so many things I hate about Christ­mas, that I strug­gle to list them in order of hat­ed­ness.  Grant­ed, I can name three or four things I hate about Christ­mas at a momen­t’s notice, any day of the year, but when I real­ly sit down to focus my un-char­i­tabil­i­ty toward the hol­i­day?  Hoo boy.  Look out.  Con­sid­er:

I hate Late-Octo­ber Christ­mas, in which jacks-o-lantern are chased away by (or in many cas­es share porch­es and store­fronts with) Christ­mas dec­o­ra­tions, as though we fear we won’t sur­vive the 54 days between the buck­et of Baby Ruths and Smar­ties we scored from our neigh­bors, and the sack of trin­kets we expect to receive from fam­i­ly, friends, and an inex­plic­a­bly jol­ly elf with unnerv­ing home inva­sion skills.

I hate Air­craft-Diver­sion Christ­mas, the hol­i­day mocked by Chevy Chase movies but mis­guid­ed­ly imi­tat­ed by so many, in which the light pol­lu­tion of com­pet­i­tive gaudi­ness and flair ren­ders invis­i­ble the tran­quil beau­ty of stars in the win­ter sky.

I hate Cook­ie Christ­mas, in which we pre­pare ridicu­lous quan­ti­ties of labor-inten­sive, hor­ri­fy­ing­ly sweet, unjus­ti­fi­ably gaudy con­fec­tions and dis­trib­ute them to friends and fam­i­ly, all while pat­ting our slight­ly-less-svelte-than-we-wish-they-were bel­lies and chuck­ling demure­ly, “oh, no, I real­ly could­n’t.”

I hate San­ta Christ­mas, by which chil­dren are indoc­tri­nat­ed to asso­ciate mate­r­i­al wealth with good behavior—as though the Koch broth­ers were the kind of peo­ple we want our chil­dren to grow up to be—and by which kids learn ear­ly on that the peo­ple who teach us wrong from right clear­ly don’t have a clue how the world actu­al­ly works.

I hate Sud­den­ly Reli­gious Christ­mas, which pre­tends that Decem­ber 24 is a more impor­tant day for spir­i­tu­al com­mu­ni­ty than, say, Sep­tem­ber 10, and accepts rote recita­tion of mythol­o­gy in place of authen­tic, dis­ci­plined rela­tion­ship with tran­scen­dence.

I hate “It’s-The-Thought-That-Counts” Christ­mas, that con­de­scend­ing­ly self-right­eous hol­i­day that serves not to lib­er­ate its par­tic­i­pants from bla­tant con­sumerism, but rather to jus­ti­fy their per­ceived need to pur­chase self-worth by wast­ing mon­ey on unnec­es­sary, unwant­ed gew­gaws that, in a slight­ly less imper­fect world, would hit the dust­bin along with the wrap­ping paper, sav­ing the recip­i­ent the awk­ward “It-Was-A-Gift” peri­od dur­ing which they are social­ly bound to pre­tend they appre­ci­at­ed the ges­ture.

I even hate “Mer­ry Christ­mas,” as a phrase.   For musi­cians and reli­gious pro­fes­sion­als and retail­ers and med­ical pro­fes­sion­als and so many oth­ers in ser­vice posi­tions, Decem­ber is the busiest, most stress­ful time of the year.  Gen­er­al­ly, if I can make it through a day in Decem­ber with­out curs­ing any­one out I call it a suc­cess.  “Full of cheer­ful­ness or gai­ety? Joy­ous in dis­po­si­tion?” Take that and lump it, and just let me go home and lock the door and be alone with hub­by and the cats until Jan­u­ary, thanky­ou­very­much.

And I hate—heaven help me, I hate so excru­ci­at­ing­ly, rage-induc­ing­ly much—Retail Christ­mas. The jin­gle bells that under­score every com­mer­cial for the last 25% of the year… the count­less (but expen­sive) things “’tis the sea­son” for… the way one can’t shop even for every­day neces­si­ties like gro­ceries with­out sug­ges­tions that one real­ly should be spend­ing more mon­ey than one had planned to.  How I loathe Retail Christ­mas, to which the Amer­i­can econ­o­my is inex­tri­ca­bly yoked, on whose under-the-wire prof­its solo busi­ness own­ers and mega­corp execs alike depend, and at whose altar so many of the oth­er things I hate about Christ­mas bow!

But most most most of all, I hate “Real-Mean­ing-Of” Christ­mas: the insid­i­ous ways our cul­ture tries to con­vinces us that we’re wrong to ques­tion any of it—that if we speak out against mind­less tra­di­tion, com­pul­so­ry pleas­antries, or con­sumerism, we’re com­mit­ting a mor­tal sin against the Holy of Holies.

Kids, cov­er your ears.

Bullpucky.

I mean, par­don my French and all, but this is some­thing about which I feel quite strong­ly.  And I feel strong­ly about it because (don’t tell any­one) I real­ly, real­ly need Christ­mas.  But I need a dif­fer­ent kind of Christ­mas than the one that I drown in for far too many weeks every win­ter.

I need the kind of Christ­mas that finds divine, world-redeem­ing pur­pose in a child born out of wed­lock to a polit­i­cal refugee and her fiancé.

I need the kind of God who would sur­ren­der omnipo­tence and omni­science to ful­ly under­stand the hungers and fears and uncer­tain­ties of human­ness.

I need the kind of good news that is deliv­ered late at night to dirty, exhaust­ed, hard-work­ing trades­peo­ple, because the folks whose pow­er was hand­ed down to them find it threat­en­ing, and col­lude to silence it.

So every year I climb on my high horse, put on my Grinch face, update my non-gift wish­list, take lots and lots and lots of deep breaths, and start count­ing down the days until Jan­u­ary.  Not because I have a right to claim my own kind of Christmas—though I do—but because I have a feel­ing I’m not alone.

What kind of Christ­mas do you need?