Sleigh Bells ring, and I am not listening.

We all see the memes, the posts and the conversations online about Christmas as the best holiday.

Sure, we get time off from work/school, we get presents and we get to spend time with family we don’t often see.

All of those are great things, but they do not make Christmas this holiday that should be idolized as the best.

Living in the United States, the majority of people believe in some form of Christianity. .

This means around Christmastime, and even months beforehand, popular culture and the internet become obsessed with the candy-cane gingerbread cookie and old-man with a beard loving holiday.

This needs to stop: Christmas is not amazing. In fact, it’s actually kind of weird.

Christmas normalizes lying to children; my parents and many others told their kids Santa existed so we would believe in the fantasy and get into the “Christmas spirit.”

When I found out Santa wasn’t real I cried for a week, I felt crushed and betrayed. 

Now that I’m older, I have to keep this fantasy going for my younger cousins. On Christmas Eve I feel like a crook every time I ask if they’re excited for Santa to come.

Why do we do that? If you break it down — Santa is an old man who breaks into people’s houses to leave presents for children. That is creepy.

Fred Figglehorn says it best with the song title– “Christmas is Creepy.”

I think it’s strange that we support this tradition that teaches kids nothing but betrayal and lies.

I think it’s also strange that some adults are still obsessed with Santa — the man is not real and I do not understand why they want to dress up as him.

Especially strange are the people who sexualize Santa and Mrs. Claus for Halloween costumes.

I understand wanting to spice up your Halloween costume, but I do not want to see muscle-tee Santa making out with a scantily clad Mrs. Claus. 

These figures are typically old, and all this does is make me think about the rise of STD cases in old folks homes or people my grandparent’s age getting it on. Good for them, but keep it out of my head, please.

Christmas should not be sexy and it should not be thought about around Halloween.

I think my main problem with the holiday stems from the fact that people try to celebrate it year-round when the roots of Christmas come from holidays celebrating the winter solstice.

Yule, a Scandinavian holiday, is celebrated with the burning of a yule log and a massive feast in late January.

Saturnalia, the celebration of the sun, was celebrated in Rome around the winter solstice (Jan. 21). They decorated their houses with evergreen trees.

These traditions were combined once Christianity became a widespread religion. 

Instead of honoring pagan Gods, however, the holiday is now celebrated as the birth of Jesus of Nazareth.

I understand the want to celebrate the solstice or Jesus’s birthday, religion is an important part of human culture. 

I do not understand the need to bring this holiday into other times of the year.

Of late, I’ve seen people celebrating “Christmas in Summer” or “Quarantine Christmas.”  

For whatever reason, this time of year is romanticized by the public to annoying levels.

I hate the music too; it is catchy but causes me to have massive headaches in which I realize I am not having a simply wonderful Christmastime.

It’s no wonder too— when it’s July or September I wouldn’t be having a wonderful Christmastime because it isn’t Christmastime!

There is a time and place to celebrate everything, so please leave your celebration at that time and place.

No one celebrates their birthday on a random day of the year; stop doing it with Christmas.