Before you jump on me and scream about how much I hate Christmas because I choose this song, read the rest of this post.
I do not hate Christmas. When I was young, my brother and I were spoiled by our grandparents, our family would get together and at least attempt to be a cohesive family held together my my grandmother who was an outstanding woman.
This was my father’s mother. I never met my mother’s mother because she died young in a car accident, which also was something that happened to my father’s mother when she was 16. She survived even though she lost her mother and a sister in that car crash. Still, despite the pain that she dealt with her entire life, she raised two children and had a career of her own. She did her best to hold together our fractured family.
It mostly worked too. During the holidays, typically Thanksgiving and Christmas, we got together, shared stories, food and gifts. We did not pretend to be happy though but we did try to be a family.
My brother and I did enjoy the gifts, however. I also at least appreciated the fact that we stuck together as a family despite the tension and the less-than-happy history. There were rarely fights. Mostly everyone got along, or at least didn’t cause a scene.
When my grandmother passed away, the rest of us just naturally drifted apart.
It’s okay though. We’re still a family, what’s left of us anyway.
When I had just left home, there were times when I just wasn’t able to make it up for the holidays. I would talk with my friends who also couldn’t or wouldn’t be with their families. It became a rather melancholy time of year for me. Contemplative, reflective, quiet.
One year when I was still at my first university, I decided to walk downtown on Christmas morning. I literally walked down the main street, right down the middle, and did not even hear a car or see any other people. Yet, all the Christmas decorations and lights were up and on. It was very surreal and also quite fit my mood at the time.
I don’t hate Christmas, I just see it differently than how it has been marketed to us for many years now.
I refuse to pretend to be happy when I’m not.
Christmas to me is a time of contemplation, about keeping together the family you have, even if it’s your chosen family.
What Christmas is not, to me, is a celebration of fairy tales and fictional happiness. Slap lights and plastic snow on something and it’s not magically festive, happy, or anything but a sad sack of sorrow wrapped up in a tacky costume.
I think about the people who have it way worse than I do. Those who are abused, and those who are just trying to live their lives in countries where leaders just want to burn everything down. War and hatred, harassment and cruelty don’t just magically disappear just because it’s Christmas. It’s all just about as fictional as snow was to me when I was growing up in the northern end of the central valley of California.
I am not saying that we all need to be unhappy people either. We need to celebrate what we do have. We should recognize that we are lucky when we have enough to eat, a safe place to live and so on. We need to help make the world a better place.
I remember the messages from when I was forced to go to the Christian churches. They preached about stewardship, about togetherness, about helping those who can not help themselves. I also felt that I was one of the only people who actually took those messages to heart and at least attempted to put them into practice.
The holiday season is when suicide rates go up and I blame all this fake cheer for part of it.
One of the most embarrassing moments, that I didn’t bring on myself, when I was much younger, was when my step-sister and I were walking through a park in San Fransisco on a chilly, and snow-less, Christmas morning. As we walked down the path, homeless people were crawling out of the bushes where they had spent the night. What does she say? “Merry Christmas,” of course.
Most people ignored her.
I’m sorry, but learn to read the room. I can be especially bad at that but I’m not usually that bad.
Okay, I know. We didn’t know why they were there, if by choice or circumstances beyond their control. I wish them all the best of luck but I’m certain that everyone there in that park needed more help than a single person could give. Really though, to me it was the wrong thing.
A small act of kindness would have spoken more loudly. I don’t know how we could have done it but anything would have been better.
Merry Christmas, indeed.
None of them were fake happy, let me tell you.
Have your Christmas, be with your family, celebrate what you have, take a break to reconnect, recharge, remember what you are fighting for and forgive me if I don’t appear to be as jolly as you think I should be. I do have some fond memories of Christmases from my childhood. Even then, however, I knew that the presents were not from Santa, or the dog. I still appreciated them the same. Even if some of the gifts didn’t survive the day.
