Since it’s the Christmas season, (and I happened to be awake at O’dark thirty again) I was pondering what it all meant to me….and decided to favor you, dear reader with this mistletoe missive. (That was bad, huh?)
As I sat down to write how I feel about Christmas, I realized – I don’t really know.
I suppose my perspective stems from my past experiences with Christmas. I’ve been told (by Hallmark, mostly) it’s supposed to be about the traditions and memories, but I don’t really have any of either.
I do remember once, when I was about 5, we spent Christmas at my grandparent’s home in Woodgate. We had snow, a fireplace - the works. What I remember most, though, is that, more than anything else in the world, I wanted a car carrier – you know, the truck that brings the cars to the car dealer? I got one, little cars and all. For a little while anyway, my little world was complete.
Year after year, I would study the pages of the Wish Book and pore over the details of all the new toys until the pages were almost blank. I knew I was never going to have any of them, but it didn’t dissuade me. My grades in school were pretty lousy, but if they had tested me on the contents of that catalog, I’d have aced it.
I don’t think there was too much money to spare in our household. We were never left wanting, but there was seldom money for “extras”. My friends got the Hot Wheels tracks and stuff, but I never did.
One Christmas, Dad must have gotten a bonus or something, because there were quite a few gifts that year – including a Cox airplane for me - but that was the exception, rather than the rule.
Christmas got the axe when I was about ten or so. I vaguely remember being told that, since I wasn’t a little kid anymore, they were kind of pulling the plug on Christmas. No tree, nothing.
For the next few years, I remember Christmas being just another day. Once in a while we would have something special to eat – lasagna or calamari come to mind.
At 17, I began spending Christmas with my girlfriend’s family. Boy was that a one-eighty from what I was used to…
In her family, it was all about the gifts.. Her mom starts shopping in, like, August. There were usually several trash bags full of presents – both at her house and then again at her grandmother’s. They meant well, but there was so much stuff, it was embarrassing, to say the least. In many cases, little-to-no thought was put into the selection: “Gee a Chia-Pet Elvis…how did you know?” Quantity was favored over quality. They completely and utterly bought into the whole Madison Avenue/Hollywood version of Christmas. They bought presents for people because they were supposed to, not because they wanted to. (My question “if you don’t know Uncle Mike well enough to know what he’d like, why are you buying him anything?” was met with mumbled excuses). They did things not because it meant anything but because they were too sheep-like to come up with anything original. Some sort of Pavlovian response ran through the family, only instead of the Salvation Army bell triggering drooling, they went into zombie-like “Must…..buy….” mode.
For the next 20 years, that was what Christmas was: a veritable orgy of gift giving. The only change was that, as her sister’s family grew, the Christmas “celebration” at her mom’s got louder, with more bickering. Fortunately, we lived next door, so when it got to be too much for me, I could just go home.
Let’s pile on top of that the amoral feeding frenzies in the stores, the ever-increasing desperation of retailers, the hypocrisy of those who preach “peace and joy and love” but practice anything but… and, since it’s Christmas, I’ll throw in a freebie: all those who go to the multimillion dollar mega churches….ostensibly to celebrate the birth of someone born in a stable – and the irony is completely lost on them.
Is it any wonder I view Christmas with a mixture of a strange mixture of ambivalence, disgust and bemused apathy?
I guess after all this time, I’ve come to terms with the holiday (who am I to turn down time off from work, huh?) and celebrate it in my own simple way: a few gifts carefully chosen for those who mean the most to me, and a special meal.
For the three people who actually read this (because they mistyped “middle aged porn” into Google) my gift is just a wish:
Peace
