Generic joy-spreading causes pain

On Black Friday it began. The radio station, the only one we’re allowed to listen to at work,… On Black Friday it began. The radio station, the only one we’re allowed to listen to at work, began to play Christmas music. The way some children are raised to abhor racism, sexism and honesty, I was raised to abhor Christmas. The combination of parental commentary and envy of Christian friends with shiny, new toys formed a firm foundation for the type of attitude that not even Bill Murray’s ghost friends could cure.

Over the last few years I’ve tried to feign politeness when interacting with the reindeer enthusiasts, but there are two things that take place between the end of November and the beginning of January that destroy my semi-pleasant facade: Christmas music and generic joy spreading.

Catchall phrases torture me. Those used out of laziness are understandable. Specificity is exhausting. Sometimes deciding if you’re going to wish someone a good day, a good evening, a good week, a good pilgrimage or a good plane wreck can be overwhelming, so I let “Have a good one” go.

“Season’s Greetings” is a sickening and cowardly attempt to express goodwill. If you’re going to force your joy on another person, make sure it’s your own joy. Don’t be afraid that you might be excluding, offending or assuming. If they can’t appreciate the sentiment despite a different religious tradition, they’re not going to appreciate an effort of any sort.

Christmas music affects my holiday smile in exactly the way a full moon affects a werewolf. On Black Friday I discovered that I’d be listening to about one Christmas song every 15 minutes for eight-hour stretches. I called the radio station, praying the frequency of Christmas songs in the playlist was upped just for the day. He confirmed my fears.

I knew I couldn’t possibly survive a month of it without devouring an employee or two, and since I need the money, I needed a solution. I could neither change the radio station nor turn it off. Stuck, I soon realized the only thing I could change was myself.

I needed to find one thing about Christmas that made the agony worth it. If I could discover something that I treasure that could not exist without Christmas, then I could find a way to genuinely hate Christmas less. I hoped less Christmas hate would mean more peaceful days at work.

I thought and I thought. I searched for something dear to me that depended on Christmas. Then, I remembered a “Saturday Night Live” skit. In a Christmas edition of “Church Chat,” the Church Lady rearranges the letters spelling “Santa” to read “Satan.” Hilarious as the skit was, it led instantly to a dark philosophical rant æ Santa is not Satan in disguise.

He’s God. He receives the prayers of children. He chooses who is worthy of reward. Songs teach children to be good or risk his wrath. Movies teach the value of having faith in Santa. After filling children’s minds with a notion of good rooted solely in reward and punishment, parents inform them that there is, in fact, no Santa.

The kids learn that this figure was nothing but a mask enabling inadequate figures of authority to exert greater control over their subjects. My attempt to find something good in Christmas led me to blaming it for the shallow, brittle state of American spirituality.

Fearing that I’d be lost forever to the broadcasted songs of these green- and red-clad sirens, I desperately searched my memory. Then, I remembered “Home Alone.” I knew instantly that it was my salvation – not the film itself, of course. The face-slapping child star has a younger brother.

Macaulay Culkin’s younger brother starred in one of the greatest films of our generation. While it’s possible that Kieran Culkin would have gotten the role on his own, there is a chance that without the Christmas-dependent “Home Alone,” he wouldn’t have played Igby in “Igby Goes Down.” The price the world has paid on account of Christmas from babbling Elmo to “Jingle All the Way,” is nothing to what we’d have lost without “Igby Goes Down.”

Now when I hear “Here comes Santa Claus,” I think “Pavlov’s pothead” to myself. When Trans Siberian Orchestra stabs at me, I parry with “The world’s not ready for Peeka.” When anything having to do with Rudolph attempts to fill me with Christmas cheer, I fill my head with, “His conception was an act of animosity, why shouldn’t his life be one as well?” There’s no Christmas song the radio can throw at me that I can’t counter with a line or two from “Igby Goes Down.”

Thanks to this masterpiece by Burr Steers, when a complete stranger forces her goodwill upon me, I just think of Claire Danes as a “nymphomaniacal, pseudo-Bohemian JAP,” smile and shake my head.

E-mail your favorite lines from “Igby Goes Down” to Zak Sharif at rzs8@pitt.edu.