It's
Christmas 2016 and you're not feeling it. Somehow you've managed to throw up some decorations, bake
some cookies and wrap some gifts. But the more you
try to stoke the flames of holiday joy, the more apparent it becomes: This will
be a sad one. SAD, as in Seasonal Affective Disorder. SAD as in Sorrowful, Anguished, Distraught.
You've
tried to get into the spirit, but instead of counting your blessings, you're counting the number of petitions
you've signed, the horrifying
cabinet appointments, the looming decades of despair.
Your
incoming president and his minions are laying the framework to destroy the few things you liked about
the government. Every day brings another "Springtime for Hitler" moment, and you watch, agape, as another Worst Possible Thing happens. No wait, here's something even worse.
Your friends are sick of
listening to you bitch, and vice versa. You all agree the wallowing has got to stop, but each new announcement brings fresh wails of pain.
Your
once cohesive group of Facebook friends is now a tattered assemblage of groups you've painstakingly customized to see curated posts. Your Facebook feed is littered with threats, demands and nasty
comment-based mudslinging. You've been unfriended and you've unfriended others -
including some family members. And so you enter the holiday season with fewer friends,
and even though that's only true in a virtual sense, it feels very IRL.
You've attempted a news blackout, swearing off CNN and MSNBC and changing your home page away from The New York Times because every story you forget to avoid punches you in the gut. You feel alternately sick and guilty: The gifting of our country to one percenters and science deniers should be energizing you to take action...but all those worsts have worn you down. So you're only watching Shark Tank and Big Bang Theory on
regular TV, and binging on Netflix, Hulu and Amazon Prime. Amazon's cancellation of Good Girls Revolt at the moment you finished the first season hit you like a sucker punch.
You've gotten fewer Christmas
cards this year, and those you did get came without a cheery Christmas newsletter because, well, no one's feeling that cheery and there isn't much good news.
The weather is making climate change doubters gleeful because it got cold again and that means the glaciers are saved, right? Drilling in the Arctic is back on, either way.
Sure, SNL is must-see again, but only because it makes you smile as it twists the knife.
Satire is surely a goner. Fiction couldn't think up anything crazier than what's been going on this year.
Leonard Cohen, Prince and Bowie are silenced forever, while Kid Rock and Ted Nugent step back into the spotlight.
Christmas 2016: The poster child for Hellish Holidays.