Ah, the holidays. As much as they can be an awesome time to see the people you care about most, take time off, and just generally kick back, we all know they can also be a veritable stress-fest of last-minute shopping, heaps of snow, cross country travel, and familial chaos. In short, there’s a lot of stuff that can and will ruin your holiday.
While we were all hoping this would be the first normal-ish holiday season in two years, there are a couple of notable things that are most definitely going to make Christmas less than ideal this year. Let’s take a look.
Omicron
The forever plague continues unabated. Omicron is clearly about to infect a whole lot of people, and the extent to which that surge is going to lead to a lot of hospitalizations and deaths is still unknown. What is known is that the newest covid-19 strain is def going to royally mess with your Christmas. In addition to renewed anxiety and dread, it promises you: Travel restrictions! Business closures! Lobotomy-inducing culture war effusion! An unceasing commitment to wearing a mask everywhere, all the time, forever. Whatever the long-term consequences of omicron (and the other covid variants that are still with us), you may just find yourself deciding to spend the holidays quarantined.
Log4j
This one goes out mostly to the hordes of tech workers currently sweating their way through the worst software bug in recent memory. The Apache log4j vulnerability, which hackers are currently trying to exploit, affects droves of web platforms — including most of your favourites. All those companies and their diligent staff are currently scrambling to patch their systems before some sort of holiday hack-apocalypse happens and breaks the internet. So much for a relaxing, laid-back holiday season. All I can say is good luck, techies, bless you, and may God have mercy on your souls.
If you don’t work in IT, well, you still might have the opportunity to get hit with some ransomware while you’re opening your presents.
Weather
Extreme weather has obviously left many communities throughout the country reeling and, unfortunately, the damaging storms may not be over yet. Last week, tornadoes ripped through multiple southern and midwestern states, destroying buildings and leaving at least 90 people dead, as of Wednesday. Crews are still sifting through the wreckage and many people are still missing. This week has been marred by a huge wind storm and accompanying, dust, thunderstorms, and wildfires as well as numerous heat records.
Relatedly, the weather is projected to be particularly warm for a majority of the country, with temperatures high enough to promise little to no snow. That abnormally warm weather is projected to contribute to other, potentially destructive weather events. The National Weather Service has issued ongoing warnings that the warmth will be accompanied by abnormally high winds and subsequent potential storms.
Supply Chains
As the pandemic closes in on its second year, the supply chain issues wrought by our unending crisis are seriously mucking up the chances of you getting your latest Amazon order on time — or getting that gift you want, at all. Supply chain setbacks have wracked multiple industries and made “product availability” a bit of a crisis. Some communities, for instance, are running out of Christmas trees and even Toys for Tots are apparently having some trouble.
Bots
This year, bots are going to ruin your Christmas. How? By pilfering several thousand copies of that PS5 before you have a chance to buy one. Recent studies have shown that bot armies — affectionately termed “Grinch” bots — are on the move and they’re hoovering up online inventory like there’s no tomorrow. This often leaves the casual shopper in the lurch when it comes time to buy Xmas gifts and gives the nefarious bot-operators leverage when they resell their automated purchases for a markup on the likes of eBay or some other third-party site. Screw you and the algorithm you road in on, Grinch-bot.
NFTs
Someone is going to get you a cheap-arse NFT for Christmas this year and it’s going to suck. Imagine yourself on Christmas morning, two spiked eggnogs down, stranded on the living room couch while your overeager, crypto-pilled cousin explains to you why he got you what is basically a meme that costs money. “It’s one-of-a-kind! It has tremendous ROI potential! It’s the future of the blockchain!!” And when he finally shuts up, there you are, with an NFT. Great.