Why is Christmas NEVER perfect?

Listen to Dave’s Commentary: Why is Christmas NEVER perfect?

Every year, the same question: how come every year, at this holiday dedicated to Peace on Earth, do so many people feel like exploding?

Why isn’t Christmas relaxing? Why do tempers always seem to flare? Because you’re trying to guess likes and dislikes of people you barely know? Because you got pepper sprayed in the Retro Air Jordan line?

Of COURSE people snap at Christmas!

Because underneath all this is the fundamental contradiction of enforced happiness, happiness on a deadline. It’s an idea planted by stories and movies and commercials: that Christmas is when every family poses for their Hallmark Card; a perfect time when there is not a single raised voice, or a single raw temper.

But we are to believe the original Christmas story, it was not a carefree time. We focus on the angels and the shepherds and the Charlie Brown simplicity, but in fact, it was one of the earliest documented cases of overbooking. The holy family ended up in a stable for Christ’s sake, and I mean that in its most respectful sense. They were being hunted by a tyrant who wanted to kill the child, not to mention Joseph initially thought Mary had cheated on him.

Christmas has become this time when we try to mend all our relationships at once, but you can’t. You have to maintain them year round.

Plus… the only way to have that Hallmark ending is to go through a crisis first, to let the tempers flare … and then to cool down, come to your senses, and despite all the bad feelings, approve the payroll tax cut anyway:

“Without objections the bill is engrossed, read for a third time, and passed.”

Merry Christmas America.