Merry Christmas from Your Friendly Neighborhood Grinch

I kind of hate Christmas. I'm not down with religion or consumerism, which means the only part of the holiday left to celebrate is the "being with loved ones" part. And I don't so much have loved ones in Chile, though I'm starting to become very fond of about 3 of the 10 kids I spend a large percentage of my time with. (Incidentally, there are just as many little urchins that seem so inherently evil that every day I come closer and closer to putting the smack down on them. I try to constantly remind myself that the little demons have led some seriously fucked up lives. They're super lucky I'm all liberal and understanding of their situations. For the most part, I hold in my anger til after I leave the hogar and can punch my co-worker without being a bad example.)

So my plans for Christmas are to bake cookies and deliver them to the munchkins and then return home and make a dinner for the roommates and a friend. Very Martha Stewart of me, no? Up to today, I've had few sad thoughts induced by my not so Christmasy Christmas without my family or my super cool friends. It's hot as hell here. There's not even snow on the tops of the Andes anymore. I thought it would be enough to just not be alone. I figured not making the mistake of spending a foreign Christmas Eve at Auschwitz would be the step I needed to take to not be sad during the holidays. But something today was uncool. I spent hours grocery shopping, and my three hour trip to a Wal-Martesque store didn't even succeed in acquiring chocolate chips, pecans or really much of anything I couldn't have gotten at the supermarket 3 blocks from my place. It did however remind me that I sometimes hate other humans and that it is never worth it to go to a stupidly huge store like that. Never. Ever. Instead of leaving with the things I wanted, I left with a negative attitude and a feeling of guilt that I was one of their 500 customers participating in the mass consumerism of this season. Even though I've bought no presents what so ever, I still just spent 45 bucks on sugar and fat that I plan on distributing to children who are already drinking a half liter of soda a day and have the bellies to prove it.

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