My Christmas Rant

I confess that I love Christmas. The reason for the season, family, Christmas music, parties, being called Santa by the littles, all combine for a really special feeling. Unfortunately, every year around two weeks before Christmas, something happens to trigger my annual Christmas rant. It usually starts as a minor irritant, (like sand in a bathing suit) but then, like the heart of the Grinch, grows and grows till something explodes!

This year my award for my Christmas rant goes to Xfinity with their commercial, “Entering the gates of hell, where there’s no wifi and no shows—aka, Grandma”. I saw it for the first time about 5 am getting ready for work. I was a little annoyed. Then, as I saw it repeated time after time, I got angry, downright rantable! I tried to calm myself. I tried to be understanding about times changing. I tried to envision myself as a teenager in 2016. NOTHING WORKED!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Maybe it is because I am a grandparent, maybe it is because this commercial attacks everything that is good and sacred about Christmas, maybe because it attacks family, maybe it is because humanity seems to prefer electronic connection to human connection. Whatever the reason, I have moved from annoyance, to anger, to being really PISSED.

Quite frankly, if my grandchildren were more interested in the quality of my internet than in visiting us, I would know that I was a failure as a father and grandparent. If I needed to provide the latest entertainment to get my grandchildren to see me, I would not want them to visit!

Beyond my anger, is a feeling of sadness. The interaction between children and grandparents is priceless. The emotional connection between grandchildren and their grandparents is second only to the relationship between parent and child. I am sad that the advertising world has no concept of morality, that success is only determined by the ability to generate money.

That is my annual Christmas rant. I will spend the next two weeks appreciating the generations of crazy and dysfunctional people who made up my family. I will remember Grandma and Grandpa. Claire and I will remember how our crazy parents became wonderful grandparents. We will celebrate the human interaction rather than the electronic connection.

Rant over.