Christmas

So, another Christmas, or Giftmas if we want to be brutally honest, has passed. My son-in-law, Simon, focused me on the “Christmas Spirit” at the start of this holiday season and I’ve been reflecting on the meaning of it (the aforementioned Spirit) as I’ve muddled my way through it (Christmas).



I think that the best and worst Christmases are probably experienced by the impoverished, who really have nothing to give one another except tidings of comfort and joy. The rest of us are caught up in the gift race that retailers have convinced us is the true meaning of Christmas: the capacity of our gifts to bring tears of joy to our loved ones. Rather than expressing our affection for our children and grandchildren, we are urged to buy the gift that is the (cue silly sales-boys jumping up and down while clapping their hands together) “Oh my God, it’s just what I wanted” gift or the “How did you know; it’s just perfect” present. Socks? Maybe as a stocking stuffer even if you knitted them yourself. Baking? What, you were too cheap to put in the effort to buy something?



So how does the Christmas Spirit stand a chance when the expression itself has been so totally co-opted by the people who want to sell you as much as you can afford, and more? We are consumers and, as such, our primary function within our economy is to consume. In the process of consuming goods, however, we are also consuming concepts and ideas and one of the concepts that we are consuming is the Christmas Spirit. Every time that we buy a consumer product with the idea that we are also “buying” some Christmas Spirit for ourselves and our donee, we have decreased the inventory of Christmas Spirit. Every time that a child sees a television commercial that is pushing a particular toy, that child, to whatever extent, is learning not only the desirability of the toy on display but the appropriate reaction to presents of a particular “coolness” and a more connotative notion of Christmas Spirit.



When it comes to toys, adults are just big children. One exception might be gifts from adult or post-pubescent males to their corresponding females. In these instances the appeal is not to joy and the present comes with strings attached. In this category, gifts such as lingerie, jewelry, and big ticket items are a down payment for future favours, which may be in the Spirit of Christmas in that they concern procreation but not as the primary goal.



My earlier comment about the impoverished is a retrospect on my own past in that it seems my happiest memories were of Christmases when my family was poorest. I remember no concept of a ‘wish list’ since the Krist Kindl didn’t give kids what they wanted but, rather, just gave them stuff that they didn’t have before. When you’re a poor kid, you have no expectations except a general one that the number of your prized possessions will probably rise by one or more. The big thing about Christmas was that everyone was happier and, for a period of a few days, the world seemed filled with something other than hunger and fighting over money and same old, same old. People would be visiting, treats would make their rare appearance, and good old Uncle Whatshisname would reach into his pocket for more money than he would ever give you if he were sober.



Maybe these days the poor have crappy Christmases like most people (partly since the distribution of wealth is making the poor more of a norm) because advertising is so ubiquitous that expectations are free to rise across the economic spectrum. I hope not. There has to be some advantage to being poor.



Christmas Spirit? I guess I’ve sounded like a bit of a hum-bug in writing this but I’m really just an observer. Being random, I enjoy performing random acts of kindness throughout the year. I help little old ladies (and men). I open doors for people. I give a five or ten dollar bill to someone who has been battered by the society that has made my life more comfortable than his (or hers). I tell people to have a wonderful day as often as I can without making it cliché. And stuff. In trying to keep my childhood household running smoothly, I developed a sense of mitigating my environment and trying to make it happier. Sometimes I slip and sometimes I even totally miss the boat (like with my daughter’s boyfriends) but I try to live life with my eyes open and be a positive force in the world (except when it comes to managers, administrators and conservatives). And I’ve decided that Christmas Spirit has a major flaw.



Like people who go to church on Sundays (or Saturdays, or even everyday like my friend Wayne) so they have license to be tight-sphinctered assholes the other seven days, Christmas Spirit is something that would be better practiced all year round rather than for a few days at the end of the year. In setting up Christmas to concentrate the good will and peace on earth mantra, we set it up to be an episodic but annually recurring break from our everyday lives. We contribute to Christmas hampers once a year so we can feel good about how generous we are. For the rest of the year we complain about welfare, about freeloaders, about bums who should get a job and forget about the social justice that would obviate our yearly casting of coins at the feet of the poor. We salve our conscience with contributions to ‘Save the Children’ funds (these people know when to guilt people into generosity) but complain about foreign aid to make them self-sufficient and don’t consider realities such as longitudinal survival in areas of chronic drought and famine or the distribution of milk powders to a majority population which is lactose intolerant.



All that aside, at least we have a period of time when we can strive to be nicer to one another; the rest is Utopian. For all of you who truly believe in the Christmas Spirit, Happy Christmas and a warm Yuletide Season. For the rest of you . . . Happy Christmas and a warm Yuletide Season.