I have bouts with humbuggery. It's not that I dislike Christmas. In fact it's precisely the opposite. I like it so much, feel its sacredness so much, that the rampant commercialism and overwrought "Christmasy" stuff is a mockery and cause for sadness to me. Even amongst family, the greater portion of whom have at least some faith, the secularized traditions and popular religious-esque traditions they doggedly associate with Christmas are so hollow, cheesy, or inappropriate to the day I can barely stand it.
It's not that they have a bad heart. They just buy into the supermarket commercial image of the holiday with all it's kitsch and forced nostalgia that is really just a clever marketing ploy. Some actually enjoy the whole gift exchange aspect...but I'm pretty sure I've blogged on that before.
The point is, some years I have been able to keep Christmas in my own heart by avoiding as much of that as possible. By finding time to slow down and step aside, stay out of the shopping places, and let the real import of the season affect me. But this year because of some changes in circumstance, I have been unable to do it. Many times this year, I've been thrust into that Christmas madness unwittingly. It has left me grumpy and short-tempered. Everything I do not want to be around Christmas.
You know what this tells me? When I am ill-tempered because I can't find the goodness in something, or otherwise off-kilter, it usually means I've done something wrong. Like Eve eating the apple and finding that the result she got wasn't what she had expected. It tells me that I have been duped. That I have allowed myself to be pulled off balance. Frustration at being had, makes me angry, and I don't even recognize why right away. Upon realizing it, I can almost hear the demons' cruel laughter.
So what to do? It may be too late for this year. I just have to be extra careful not to take the frustration at my mistakes out on those who aren't aware of the problem. In other words, I shouldn't ruin the holiday for those who are blind to the evils inherent in their practices. They aren't able to see it even if I point it out. I've tried in the past. The result is that I just look sour and angry.
I can also take steps to arrest it from spinning off any further. Today I refused to buy any more Christmas presents. It's done. I'm done. I have also been praying and asking for God to restore my peace. I've been trying to saturate myself with things that typically help me so as to regain my balance.
And then, there's the biggest decision. I don't do it lightly, which is why I haven't fully made up my mind. Perhaps it is the reason I was brought into this state, though...to bring me to the decision point. I am debating excusing myself from the entire rat race next year. I mean not accepting or buying a single present. No name exchange or dollar limit that no one pays attention to but me. No Christianity Today version of 'recapture the holiday and kiss Mother Culture's feet through mental gymnastics and homemade gifts'. If I get a present, I will return it or sell it and donate the money.
This is a big decision. Family will not understand it. It will create some hard feelings because it will act as a mirror for others' materialism. I'll be accused of playing the martyr, acting holier than thou. It will hurt some family members who are so bound in their materialism that they genuinely feel they are expressing love by foisting it on others. Not to mention someone will give me a great gift that I will not want to give up. It's not that I hate presents. I even believe it is a virtue to graciously receive. It's the obligation, the rat race around it that I hate and I see no other way to step out of it. I've tried, but people won't hear me. They force me to play their game.
Now of course I would buy or make a present for my son. I wouldn't force this decision upon him. But I would not hide my decision. Already we have given up the Christmas feast as a family in favor of an empty-bowls dinner...soup, bread, apple, water. To remind us of the humble nature of our King and identify with those for whom that meal would be a feast. Maybe it's time to take the next step and get out of this consumerist hell. I think it could be done delicately enough.
Saturday, December 18, 2010
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For me it has taken the form of not sending cards, not even giving cards at work and also, not giving gifts, save to my nephews and nieces. Also, this year, I have forgone the typical mad scramble to decorate or participate in other Christmas festivities. No tree, though also, no humbug. In fact, I made a point during this season to make time for spiritual and literary classics which have become a kind of focus for me. I just finished A Christmas Carol and my annual reading of Reginald, On Christmas Presents. I'm enjoying my time in Old Christmas by Washington Irving and will soon embark on my yearly listen to A Child's Christmas In Wales. I've also been going back a few hundred years in my listening and gathering as if in a net songs of Christmases long ago, before big glossy Christmas records were pressed by any and every star. I love the old customs and traditions, even some of the old superstitions which now we commemorate with a lack of understanding, borrowing the form while denying the power.
ReplyDeleteI think you are correct, not in dogging Christmas, but in rejecting the shallow cultural complex that has grown up in it's name in recent years, a marketing virus which has dominated the whole system and pretty much choked out it's light. The thing I look for each Christmas is a quiet moment in the middle of winter. It is a silent point that everything collapses around. I can't quite put my finger on what that is, but I would say that it, for me, is like some kind of holy seed, a promise, a hope of life, both in the land and in the soul of man.
ReplyDeleteFor any man who has lived his life north of the Equator winter is an interior experience. It is the great going in, to the spaces of meditation, to a familial space, a place of warmth and acceptance, amidst the rigors of the colder outside world. In Florida we do not experience this quite so much as our grandparents from Germany, Wales or New England, and yet, there is some kind of cultural memory in us that forms our very psyches. Not all of this is viral. Much of this sensible and produces a great delight when danced with in just the right way. Of course we have to adjust climes and times and eventually we will find that our living pattern in some way can complement the patterns suggested to us by our forbears. An abbreviated concert of such patterns as I see it would be a longing from the time of All Hallow's to the Winter Solstice, a feeling of going inward, in from the cold, as winter makes her approach, and as a kind of fear grows as cold and harshness take hold of the land. In older times spirits were said to be afoot on the long dark wintry nights. After the Solstice, there is a change in the land. The days from Saint Stephen's onward are at least one degree warmer, at least with an implied new sense of vitality. The days are indeed going to grow longer and with those longer days will come changes in the land herself. New life will stir ready to emerge as the lessons of winter produce the growth of spring and the fruits of the summer to come.
ReplyDeleteFor a Christian, this is the time of the birth of a god, and not only a local god, a natural god or a household god, but of the god above all gods. Here the contemplation is brought to a specific point. God enters the realm of time and space in a permanent way, conferring his image onto humanity and sacralizing it forever by his presence. Here, in one point of emergence, is the hope of Israel and the aspirations of all mankind. As the natural pagan hoped against darkness for natural light, the Christian hopes through Advent for the coming of spiritual light. The Christian worships God at the feast of his birth and the 12 days that follow are made into a kind of prolonged festal afterglow.
ReplyDeleteI am not warring against the trappings of Christmas as I revel in them all. I want the Virgin on a donkey and Father Christmas on his goat. I am a huge devotee of the Yule log to the wassail bowl. I just don't want to experience them as memes. I want to know them as things. The favorite family ornament stored in yellowing paper that emerges from a closet each year is a part of the traditiona of our actual celebrations. Store bought balls are mere baubles unless we actually worship. I don't want the pantomime Christmas, the ideal Christmas or the hyperreal Christmas. I would rather have a typical dinner and drag myself to midnight mass than play that game. Put a wreath on my door because I am honoring a god. Take it down if I am merely honoring the wreath.
ReplyDeleteWow. Thank you for the insightful words. I can tell it struck a chord with you. I was especially struck by your last two sentences, "Put a wreath on my door because I am honoring a god. Take it down if I am merely honoring the wreath." That's it exactly. There is no sacredness in many of our traditions. I can accept a secular tradition as such. But I can't abide a sacred tradition that is treated without sacredness...Pagan or Christian or otherwise.
ReplyDelete