warning! opinons expressed in this essay are strictly a means to a literary accomplishment and not the opinions of the author.

The Christmas season is a time of cheer. A time when everyone spends the majority of the time and money before Christmas making sure they will have time and money on Christmas to do with as they please. A time when  everyone gets all hyped up for one day on which all the kids wake up at 6:00 so as to make the day last as long as possible, and all the adults wake up to bouncing children at 6:01, wishing they could take advantage of the day off and sleep in till 12:00. A time when every catering company, fancy restaurant, cookbook, incredibly talented mom, fussy aunt, sneaky child and just average motivated person is busy in the kitchen, creating (or inspecting the creation of) gargantuan amounts of rich, sugary, not-very-good-for-your-average-diabetic, food. Of course, it’s not till Boxing Day that everyone truly appreciates the money spent, sleep lost, and food gorged part of the season.

This aspect of Christmas is a given. Every family everywhere sympathizes with each other come Boxing Day. However, by some this sympathy is shown by congregating at one house and giving each other trinkets and treats in order to comfort—the “bigger gifts to the bigger spenders” rule generally evening things out—while for others the sympathy is shown by the literal meaning of the day and is simply sent through the mail in a box. Over the years, the tradition of being social has slowed to a trickle. Instead of coming over to spread holiday cheer and enjoy each other’s expressions of joy as gifts are revealed, one simply stops over for a Christmas cookie, drops the box under the tree, then mutters something about putting another log on the fire and escapes back to the cozy  sweatpants and steaming cup of cocoa, to laze around in peace. I find this a much more rational way to spend Christmas.

Over the past few decades, statistics have shown that the percentage of sick children during Christmas has dropped considerably.  Statistics have also shown that over the same space of time, the rate of car crashes due to icy roads has also dropped. According to this chart (insert chart) since these are the only two things which have changed, it is only logical to assume they are connected somehow. Our next logical step is to consider the causes of both these tragic occurrences.

Our first issue, child illness during the Christmas season, can be illustrated by this second chart (insert second chart). We see here that the top reasons for child illness are INFLUENZA, PNEUMONIA, FOOD COMAS and OVER CONSUMPTION OF CHRISTMAS SWEETS. All of these can be directly traced back to socially connected Christmas traditions, namely family/ friendly gatherings. Everyone knows that it’s not half so much fun to have snowball massacres and build (and consequently get busted for building) anatomically correct snowmen when you’re not doing so with a large group of people. Both of these activities encourage spending excessive amounts of time outside which could lead to any number of illnesses including INFLUENZA, PNEUMONIA and FROSTBITE.

It is also common knowledge that every family attending such gathering is requested to bring some sort of food item. However, while this is common knowledge to us party-poopers, the families who are asked to contribute the food have apparently no idea that everyone else was asked as well and so bring enough food for the entire gathering. Let’s do the math on this one. If everyone brings enough food for themselves PLUS everyone else you get…WAY TOO MUCH FOOD! Once this is realized, each contributor begins to feel rightfully sheepish and so, as penance, stuffs themselves fuller than they thought possible in a useless attempt to reduce leftovers. This can result in FOOD COMAS or, in the case of children who slyly slip their meat and potatoes to the dog and instead survive the entire night on pecan pie, sugar cookies and candy canes, a SERIOUS SUGAR OVERDOSE.

Now, let’s look at the second issue: car crashes due to icy roads. This one, quite frankly, is so simple, you can sum it up in one short phrase—“spiked eggnog and icy roads don’t mix!” Did you ever wonder why eggnog tastes so good? Or did you, like so many others, get pushed back and told to let the adults go first. In the end, specific adults got a few more rounds than others and then decided that the party needed a little more “spike”, and so went out in a very crashable car which should have expired in the 1800’s to fetch it? That and the combination of all the ambulances rushing to pick up the kids in food comas makes for some pretty nasty car crashes.

Over all, as statistics prove the dangers of congregating about Christmas time far out strip the benefits. It is just as fun, and not nearly as dangerous to curl up  on a sofa in your pajamas with a mug of cocoa, coffee, tea or other such warming beverage (other than spiked eggnog) and just be lazy. Plus, with the recent improvements of the postal services all over the world, you don’t have to worry about being unsocial. Dollar store trinkets and cheep Christmas cards sent through the mail are lifesavers. Besides, if you use this method of celebrating Christmas, you are upholding the tradition of Boxing Day. And that’s what Christmas is all about, right? Upholding tradition.