Jesus Fucking Christ, Not Another Yuletide Thread...

Surely I'm not the only one to bear malice towards this holiday...the time when employers promise bonuses or raises but deliver boxes of chocolates to fatten you up instead...and those treats are delivered from your supervisor's own pocket, as whatever your company CEO does to celebrate this "spirit of giving" is purely to stuff his own pockets...perhaps I'm a scrooge, lonely and keeping every coin I earn to myself just as my superiors do, except it's easier to enjoy myself throughout the other eleven months of the year...when arguments with family members about Christianity are less bountiful...but I'm probably incorrect. As my fellow kin describe, the Bible has answers to all, even when not obviously stated therein...so I can only drink an extravagant amount of scotch while being informed I'm closed-minded and "need to think for myself" to discover Christ, find a white virgin to fuck and purchase enough household appliances to prove my love to her. Fuck Christmas.

Oh, this has been a year fraught with death around myself as well. I just wish there was some elixir I could slip into a Christian's egg nog to induce doubt. Arsenic? Even the parents of my deceased friend have a little existentialism in them, but whenever religion is summoned into family conversation, the devout will question my reasoning - "So this is all there is? No purpose? Why are you still alive, then?" - without realizing that those very queries would make for a true discussion, and involve actual philosophizing; in essence, they try to avoid topics of substance (when provoking my atheism!) because it's easier to get along otherwise; nevermind any ill feelings or reservations towards others, which are suppressed or spread lightly as gossip, building over years until amounting to physical violence against another - their principle objection to atheists is based on their sociability, as if I'm simply trying to cause trouble, while a cousin of mine is beaten by her husband and nothing is said about them beyond subtle gossip; because the couple makes appearances together like responsible, well-to-do adults with their relatives, and the husband is agreeable with the rest of the family on a social basis; despite threatening my uncle's life over the phone because he wouldn't send any more cash to them.

One has to step back and recognize how fucking absurd the familial unit is; and how, eventually, most of us will end up continuing the cycle, of which the deity concept is usually tossed into at some point. Man, I can't wait until Christmas now that I think of it: "So how's throwing her down the stairs?"

And I'm not even especially close to any of them; it's just amazing what will fly within the family that no one would put up with outside of it.