You don't like Christmas? Be my guest. Nothing obliges you to. But why anyone would invest time and emotional energy in very publicly not liking Christmas mystifies me. I refer in this case to the man I sometimes call The Dude, and call him that as a sign of respect for his knowledge, his wit and his capacity for a fight when a fight is needed. The Dude is talking Christmas as 'a moral and aesthetic nightmare', with a 'totalitarian' reference in the margins just for good measure. Shuggy (via whom) has some sharp sceptical observations, but I'd like to add a couple of thoughts of my own.
I don't get it. If you don't like it, you can shut it out and you can filter, so that your attention is on other things. The effort may not be entirely successful, but if you don't achieve most of what you want to in this regard, then you aren't trying very hard. There are many things I don't enjoy that others do, and I find the shutting out and filtering approach works wonders. Second, we in my neck of the woods have been celebrating a secular version of Christmas ever since our children were old enough to be aware of it. We enjoy doing so. I make no special claims for this family as an exemplar or model. But a rant against Christmas which fails to register the elementary fact that many people do enjoy it, get something of human value out of it - however many also don't - is missing a point in the way of understanding the holiday.