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YMonday, December 25, 2006
Merry Christmas... I guess... Labels: Musings
I'm not particularly excited about today being Christmas. To me, it just seems that people have forgotten about the true meaning of this holiday. This seems especially sad, given that I'm not even Christian. Perhaps I should begin by describing the way I celebrate Christmas. Up until the eve of Christmas, my family does nothing. Absolutely nothing. If you came to my house on the 23rd of December, and again on, say, the 6th of April, you wouldn't be able to find any differences between the two. Then on the eve of Christmas, the magic begins. My entire family is dragged into this frenzied whirlwind of preparations, where we are forced to do cleaning that we had put off for many weeks, set up tables and chairs, and prepare lots and lots of food. The stress of having a party for forty over people has various strange and wonderful effects on the members of my family. It's rather interesting to watch, but that's a story for another time. Anyway, so we have the party. Eat, socialize, eat some more. Clean up, go to sleep. The next day, on Christmas day itself, our lives go on normally.
So, in short, my Christmas celebration can be summed up simply. It's all about food. Honestly. Christmas, for us, is just an excuse (a very good one) to have very good food. The birth of Christ is great, it is. But I think there are more than enough people celebrating it for him around the world. So, what is my point in telling you about my Christmas? I'm not really sure.
(Oh yes! Now I remember. It is meant to get a reaction from all my clever witty cool handsome pretty beautiful readers. Now you are meant to condemn me for my lack of Christmas spirit. You now list all the things that I should do, like setting up a tree, buying presents, santa claus, because after all, is it not Christmas?)
But, I must tell you, many of these Christmas "traditions" actually have nothing to do with Christmas. Christmas is celebrating the birth of Christ, so how did pine trees, reindeer, and buying presents, get involved? The involvement of trees with Christmas is actually a Christian adaptation of pagan tradition and ritual surrounding the Winter Solstice and pagan tree worship. Modern use of trees began in 18th century Germany, then spread around Europe to France, Belgium, England. It then spread to the USA. Since the USA is the center of the world, this tradition is now continued by billions of people around the world, who learn from the great and wise America.
Santa Claus was based on St. Nicholas, however, his amazing reindeer that can fly and pull a massive sled filled with billions of toys were created in the poem "A Visit From St. Nicholas". The poem is the one responsible for forming the general conception of Santa Claus and his relations to Christmas and all the good stuff. However, the most famous reindeer of all, Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer, was CREATED by the American department store Montgomery Ward in 1939.
Gift giving was originally related to St. Nicholas, but had very little to do with Christmas, until "A Visit From St. Nicholas". But commercialism, greed, and capitalism has caused what was once a meaningful gesture to metamorphose into a retailers eyes alight with glee rubbing theirs together in delight while calculating their earnings, pushing and shoving in crowded malls buying crap for people you don't even like, wrapping up heaps of presents with colorful paper and tying little bow ties while trying to write some forced message of love and joy in a small card kind of event.
So what have I done with this post? Destroyed Christmas forever? Caused little children to weep with despair? Made enemies with every single retailer in the world? Perhaps none, perhaps all three. But, I would just like to say, that Christmas shouldn't be about materialistic things. You don't have to spend money buying trees or presents to enjoy it. Christmas can be about family, friends, food, kind gestures, charity, togetherness. All the good stuff. It's what you make of it.
Merry Christmas.