I Love Ranting About Special Days!
The biggest days of the year aren’t all they’re hyped up to be.
There are 365 days in the year. Most of them are nondescript; they’re pedestrian and uneventful, simply there for us to continue our routines. But, there are a few special days in the calendar, and these are meant to disrupt our schedules and encourage us to act differently, all for the purpose of some positive cause.
But the thing is, I can’t stand special days! I really can’t. While I can see the good in them, for me, they’re mostly overhyped and not worth all the stress, hassle and chaos.
As any writer would do, I decided to channel my negative feelings towards special days into … you guessed it, some e-books! I’m using this blog post to introduce you, dear reader, to my Rants About Special Days series. I’ll run through the structure of the e-books and share some rants so you can see how much I despise these special days that everyone except me can’t seem to get enough of.
The Rants About Special Days Series Explained
Each instalment in the Rants About Special Days series contains 13-15 rants about the specific day. The rants are several hundred words long, and every e-book is around 7-8,000 words or so. At the end, there’s a final piece of writing that, surprisingly, talks about the highlighted day in a more positive way. Below you’ll find summaries of the e-books and further down there are brief excerpts from each one for you to read.
Not So Festive - As you can probably guess, this one’s all about Christmas, the biggest, most over-the-top day of the year.
Not So Spooky - This one’s all about Easter. Just kidding - it’s to do with Halloween of course!
Not So Loving - The focus of this e-book is Valentine’s Day, which makes me want to vomit.
Not So Caring - In this e-book, I rant and rave at large about birthdays.
Not So Festive
This jolly excerpt is from Rant #9, ‘The Best Part Is Over Too Fast’.
I don’t care what anyone says. For me, the best aspect of Christmas is without a doubt the presents. I’m far from materialistic and don’t value objects and possessions above loved ones, but the exchanging of gifts is the highlight of Christmas, most definitely so. Why? Because it’s the only part of the day that’s unique.
What else do you do on Christmas besides open presents? You’re forced to become sociable and interact with many people. You need little encouragement to become a glutton and eat voraciously. You cave in and become a wine-o and consume copious amounts of alcohol. You’re easily persuaded to become a sloth and watch whatever the TV channels are showing.
All these things you can do on any other day of the year. None of them is exclusive to Christmas. Yet the present-giving part of it is. And that’s why it’s the best part of the day for me.
What’s galling is that by the time you’ve opened all your presents and watched your nearest and dearest open theirs, barely any time has passed. You’ve still got the majority of the day to go. For some reason, we automatically get the best part, the one unique aspect, out of the way first, all so we can concentrate on the rest of the day, which is made up of things that aren’t as appealing.
Not So Spooky
I’ve chosen Rant #11, ‘Half-Hearted Attempts at Dressing up Are Irritating’ for this scarily honest excerpt.
If you’re going to dress up for Halloween, at least make an effort. What grinds my gears is when people throw any old clobber on and decide that the incoherent assortment of clothes they’re wearing is going to be their ‘costume’. Thus, they’ll be going as something completely irrelevant and not linked with Halloween at all.
A teenager wears a hoodie and is a ‘yob’. A woman, wearing normal clothing, draws some whiskers on her face and is a ‘cat’. A man puts some fake, pointy teeth in and is a ‘vampire’. You can probably conjure up a few similar examples yourself.
If you’re going to make a minimal amount of effort, why stop there? Why not keep going? Why not take the time to impress people? Surely that’s better than turning up and causing them to question what you’re meant to be and why you didn’t go further?
If you’re not going to try that much, why try at all? Why spend a few minutes – if that – throwing your costume together when you could be doing something else with your time? Why do the very least when you could just do nothing and garner similar reactions?
Not So Loving
This oh-so lovely excerpt is from Rant #10, ‘The Gifts Are Nearly Always Tacky and Throwaway’.
Lots of people put care and thought into the gifts they bestow on their significant other. They eschew the temptation to purchase the common-or-garden tat that lines shop shelves every year. You know the stuff I mean: little teddy bears, boxes of chocolates, cheap knick-knacks in the shape of a heart …
The Valentine’s Day gifts you come across in shops are usually mindless, impersonal and worthless. There’s clearly demand for them because they resurface annually, but to me they’re inauthentic. Sure, some people like them and others find this stuff comedic – that’s up to them – but I don’t see the point in purchasing tawdry, bland pieces of toot that are devoid of any real significance. Give me a thoughtful gift – it need not be expensive; it could even be something completely free – over a stack of red and pink Valentine’s Day goodies any day.
It’s a shame that so many of us resort to buying things that are mass-produced. If you purchase a box of chocolates, for example, how many other people do you think will have bought the exact same gift? Sweep your lover off his or her feet, figuratively speaking, and enjoy a getaway to a foreign city. How many other couples will be in the exact same city at the exact same time?
Not So Caring
The delightful excerpt below is from Rant #7, ‘They Become Less Fun As You Grow Older’.
Something else about birthdays I don’t like is the fact that the more you have, the less fun they are. For some people, this isn’t the case as they’re able to drum up enough enthusiasm and bring together enough people that there’s no decline in quality when it comes to their birthdays. No matter what, they always seem to get in the mood and make the most of the occasion. They can tolerate being the centre of attention. They welcome the regular stream of reminders making sure they know that they’re another year older.
However, these people are a minority. At least, that’s what it seems like to me. Birthdays were fun for a while, but the sheen started to wear off as I lived through my teenage years. Then as I tackled my twenties, the minute amount of sheen that was still there gradually faded away. Now I’m in my thirties and there’s practically nothing left; birthdays have lost their appeal and I don’t see the fun in them as I used to many moons ago.
For most of us, birthdays do indeed become less enjoyable as we age. It’s easy to become less enthused about them when you’ve experienced lots of them. Plus, the more of them you have, the more of your life you’ve lived and the more aware of your own mortality you are.
Don’t You Hate Special Days Too?
You must, surely. There’s got to be at least one day of the year that fills you with dread and makes you roll your eyes. It just so happens that there are lots of days that make me do these things!
I think most people secretly dislike special days; they’re just too polite to tell anyone. While I would consider myself to be polite, I’m not afraid to let people know that I don’t like certain days of the year that are seemingly forced on me. Writing the Rants About Special Days e-books is a great way for me to unleash my feelings, dispel thoughts from my mind and clear away some of the negativity.
We’ve all got a bit of contempt in us. No one completely and utterly loves everything! If you’ve always looked at the positive side of Christmas, Halloween, Valentine’s Day and birthdays, you might find the Rants About Special Days worth reading. After all, it’s good to expose yourself to different opinions once in a while. With my rants, you’ll see that some of the biggest, most important things we celebrate aren’t necessarily all they’re cracked up to be.
Download the Rants About Special Days Series
If you’d like to read my honest, unabashed rants about some of the most precious, hyped-up days of the year, download and read the Rants About Special Days e-books. You can read the complaint-filled e-books in any order.
You’ll find the all-important links below. Proceed with caution!
Not So Festive - Amazon, Apple Books, Barnes & Noble, Google Play, Kobo
Not So Spooky - Amazon, Apple Books, Barnes & Noble, Google Play, Kobo
Not So Loving - Amazon, Apple Books, Barnes & Noble, Google Play, Kobo
Not So Caring - Amazon, Apple Books, Barnes & Noble, Google Play, Kobo
Will There Be More Instalments in the Rants About Special Days Series?
Absolutely! I’m just getting started … At the moment, I have plans for another four instalments:
Not So Festive: Volume II - A second collection of rants about Christmas. Yes, I feel so strongly about the day that I’ve been able to come up with even more rants!
Not So Joyful - The focus of this e-book is weddings and what I strongly dislike about them.
Not So Glum - The rants here are all about funerals, which are never a pleasant experience.
Not So Lively - In his e-book, New Year is the focus, with ramblings covering both New Year’s Eve and Day.
If you’re desperate to read my newest Rants About Special Days e-books, subscribe to my newsletter. I’ll let you know whenever I release a new e-book, plus I’ll keep you updated with other writing-related things I’ve got going on.
Thanks for Reading
Many thanks for reading this blatantly promotional blog post. If you’re interested in hearing my thoughts on special days, you know what to do. Download any Rants About Special Days e-book that tickles your fancy, read it excitedly and leave a rating and review, so that many more people’s lives can be improved by reading my overly negative criticisms of special days.