Christmas Day is in our grasp, so long as we have hands to clasp. – Theodore Seuss Geisel
I find it terribly sad that many if not most modern people don’t “get” Christmas at all, and the major reason is that so many of them try to turn it into something it isn’t, or else they fall for others’ attempts to do so and mistakenly believe that Christmas “is” what all the Grinches say it is. Big business has tried to claim it as the excuse for an orgy of conspicuous consumption, conservative Christians have overreacted to commercialization by trying to claim it as “their” religious holiday, and the politically correct have overreacted to the Christians by creating a neutered “winter holiday” shorn of any symbolism or meaning whatsoever, thus encouraging further commercialization and Christian posturing. And this annual power-struggle between Christ, Mammon and Sensitivityperson has become so annoying that many people want nothing more to do with the holiday, which they perceive as a colossal fraud.
But Christmas has existed in one form or another since at least 3000 years before the birth of Jesus, and in all likelihood back to the last glacial retreat about 10,000 years ago. It has had many names, and though each succeeding generation adds some traditions and old ones slowly fall by the wayside, some elements have remained unchanged practically since the beginning. In a way, Christmas is a lot like life itself (as befitting a festival celebrating the renewal of life and hope); everyone thinks of it differently and experiences it differently, and nobody is harmed by other people celebrating it differently or not celebrating it at all. It’s big enough for all the varied traditions which it encompasses, and then some, and any attempt to reduce it to one specific “reason for the season” which excludes all others is selfish, childish and ultimately a theft of the spirit of the holiday, which is about giving and sharing. If you want to celebrate the birth of your deity at Christmas, feel free; if you want to employ it to make a ton of cash, go right ahead; and if you want to use it as an excuse for a skiing holiday that’s fine as well. But don’t pretend that your way of observing the season is the only “right” one, because it isn’t.
One year ago today I wrote about the magic of Christmas as I experienced it growing up, and I pointed out that it can still be that way:
The hype can be avoided by turning off the TV set (or at least avoiding commercials by fast-forwarding prerecorded shows), tossing sales flyers and setting one’s spam filters to reject any rubbish with “Black Friday” or “Cyber Monday” in the subject line. The crush and stress can be avoided by shopping early and/or online, and the joys of a simpler time can be recaptured by watching favorite old Christmas shows and movies on DVD while munching on homemade (NOT store bought) gingerbread men or Christmas cookies and drinking cocoa or egg nog…think back to your own childhood, and bring those fun and magical activities back. Even if everyone around you is eating tasteless, frozen TV dinners, there’s nothing to stop you from cooking a real meal, and so it is with Christmas; just because everyone else has swallowed the prefab commercial “holiday” doesn’t mean you have to as well.
In other words, commercialization and culture wars can only steal your Christmas if you let them. It was here long before the Grinches which have tried to claim it as exclusively theirs, and it will continue to exist long after they’re just words in a history book. Because as Dr. Seuss reminds us, “Christmas Day will always be, just so long as we have we.”
Good post, but I think you’re sort of pissing into the wind, as most of these Grinchs/Scrooges are pretty much Aesops fox, as they see everyone having fun which they can’t have so they go out of the way to spoil it. There’s no reasoning with such people.
Damn now I sound like a killjoy…sorry 🙁
Merry Christmas 🙂
Ah, but you’re missing the point; I don’t have to convince the killjoys of anything (which, as you say, is impossible). I just have to convince reasonable people to ignore them.
Creationists, feminists, communists and other “we have a monopoly on Truth” fanatics will always exist, but once society learns to ignore them they will be no more of an issue than flat-Earthers or people who believe Mt. Shasta is inhabited by Lemurian refugees.
I think the thing that always bothered me most about the holiday season is the almost mandatory joy and togetherness. Some of us just aren’t in those situations, perhaps our families are far away, or we’re not on good terms or something.
I’ve found that trying to reconnect with the original spirit of the day, about the seasons, helps me most.
My Mom’s family … I called them pretty much “klansmen” – they were so WASP – but no, I never saw one in a hood. They all lived in Mississippi WASP territory over in East MS near the Alabama State line.
My Dad’s family – were all French Catholics who were basically refugees from New Orleans. They lived on the WEST side of Mississippi near the Louisiana State line in a town known as Delisle – which is French for something.
Anyway – we’d hit BOTH families on Christmas day … Protestant and Catholic – and the difference between the two were like night and day. I’d have to say that the Protestant celebration was more formal and predictable – probably because there was no alcohol around. The Catholic celebration? Katie bar the door! That was great fun even though I was too young to drink.
The first Christmas I ever celebrated away from my family was in 1983 and I was on a submarine in the Indian Ocean. It was Christmas eve, and we had just picked up a Soviet Echo Class Ballistic Missile Submarine to track. We were all happy we had found him – and we celebrated our Christmas in the crew’s mess after we had a good track and tail on the guy.
But … my thoughts this Christmas turn to another group of men and women – some of whom are spending this holiday in a fox hole in Afghanistan. I know many of these men and hell, most of them – if you asked them – would tell you that they’d rather be with family but … being where they are – they’re fine with it. These are really heroic people – celebrating Christmas on the front lines protecting this nation – in a country where the Bible is essentially outlawed.
Soooo … I’ll remember these fine men and women this Christmas season – it is a testament to this nation that we are still able to produce young men and women like this in the numbers we require to defend us. I could write pages and pages about them – about how they are every bit as GOOD as the kids who stormed the beaches at Normandy. We are truly lucky to have them.
Krulac, I have never celebrated Christmas without family … not this life, anyways; just lucky I guess. But I’m getting ready to celebrate it, tomorrow, with my one remaining close relative – in her nursing home. And the way she’s going downhill, it could well be her last Christmas.
That said – there is one Christmas song that is, to me, the sweetest and saddest of them all. It always brings a tear to my eye, because I can’t help but think of those kids out there “on the wall” … be it in an attack sub tailing an Echo, like your 1983 Christmas, or in a hooch in Korea too near the DMZ, or, as you say, in a foxhole in Afghanistan.
I’ll be home for Christmas … if only in my dreams.
God bless you for your service to our country. God bless those kids who “stand the line” in lands far from their home. God grant them – all that He can manage in this crazy world – that they someday will be home for Christmas, or whatever “solstice feast” they and their families celebrate.
Merry Christmas to all, and to all a good night.
Thank you, thank you, thank you. Christmas has become a bit like Thanksgiving, in that a certain segment(s) have a problem with it. As a leftist, I get annoyed with my fellow leftists when they tell me I shouldn’t celebrate Thankgiving because of blah blah blah. Thanksgiving is a variation of harvest celebrations, which have been with us at least since we’ve had agriculture, and probably even before when we were hunters and gatherers. And that includes Native American harvest celebrations.
I have a big problem with anybody telling me what I “should” or “shouldn’t” do. Any philosophy which expects individuals to practice some collectivist “right thinking” is not for me.
Reminds me of this: http://hackedirl.files.wordpress.com/2011/03/epic-win-photos-hacked-irl-touche.jpg
LOL
Love it.
I’d like to wish you a Meretricious Merry Christmas, Maggie!
🙂
I guess I’m just lucky. Except for an occasional Fundie telling me that Halloween is Satan’s grand scheme to corrupt children, I’ve never really had anybody, left, right, centrist, whatever, try to tell me I can’t enjoy any blessed holiday I want.