'Tis the season for obligatory spending.

Over two-thousand years ago, the Messiah walked the Earth. The King and Redeemer of the Jews, the man who would be betrayed by the very people he had come to enlighten...so the story goes. I talk, of course, of the man upstairs, the big JC.

Two-thousand years later, this conversation takes place.

My sister Meagan: "Hey, what do you want for Christmas?"
Me: "I don't know, what do you want?"
Meagan: "I want Across the Universe. Is there any movie you want?"
Me: "Uhhhh.. Ooh! The Dark Knight."
Meagan: "Okay. I'll get you that. See you later."

(Disclaimer: The Dark Knight is a phenomenal movie and my slight Christmas griping in no way affects how stoked I am to be a proud owner of said film.)

Ah, yes. Christmas. The Granddaddy of them all. The King of all holidays. The McDonald's to Hanukkah's Hardees. But how did we get here?

How has the celebration of the birth of the Messiah been bastardized so severely? Even the most outlandish games of Telephone never ended up this bizarre. How has the celebration of the birth of the martyr of the Christian faith turned into a day in which everybody goes and buys each other stuff?

The sense of obligation is the thing that gets me the most. I don't know if it's because I'm a selfish bastard, or because I just need to save money, but I don't really get into the spirit of giving. I give gifts out of a sense of reciprocity. If people are giving me stuff, I guess I had better give them stuff too, lest I be a huge douchebag. I narrowly avoided having to take from my savings account to finance this Christmas, and I'm trying to reserve said funds for something important in the future, like initial payments on an apartment.

Christmas...the holiday in which you contemplate dipping into your account for the future in order to buy your mom's boyfriend a waffle maker, for the sole reason that you've noticed a To/From involving the two of you already under the tree. What a kick in the pants.

In the olden days, Christmas was a magical holiday when Santa came in the middle of the night and gave you everything you wanted. Now it's the holiday in which you run presents by your whole family beforehand, because if you're going to spend X dollars, they'd better like it.

Until we can find a happy medium between rampant consumerism and religious fanaticism, Christmas will continue to be a major headache. But hey. At least I got a bunch of cool stuff.