By mid-December, we were already broken. Not the dramatic, movie-of-the-week kind of broken. The quiet kind. The kind where your lower back hurts from scrolling bad news, your fridge holds three sad carrots and a jar of pickles from 2021, and “holiday spirit” means you managed to put on a clean shirt before the 4 pm darkness settled in.

You can’t have a Gonzo Christmas without a soundtrack of broken sleigh bells. My 2022 playlist included:

In the spirit of Hunter S. Thompson, the patron saint of the Gonzo perspective, the 2022 season was characterized by a "fear and loathing" of the mundane. People weren't just buying gifts; they were stockpiling survival gear and luxury kitsch in equal measure. The supply chain was a broken spine, making the quest for the "it" toy feel like a desperate scavenger hunt in a dystopian wasteland. If you found that specific air fryer or that high-end gaming console, you didn't just win Christmas; you beat the system.