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Stealing Christmas?

Cindy on December 23rd, 2011

And they’ll feast, feast, feast, feast. They’ll eat their Who-Pudding and rare Who-Roast Beast. But that’s something I just cannot stand in the least. — Dr. Seuss, The Grinch Who Stole Christmas

Earlier this week, there was a wee bit of dissent among Facebook friends when I replaced my profile photo with an image of Dr. Seuss’s irascible Grinch. I made the change after returning from a nerve-sizzling shopping expedition at one of my favorite grocery stores, which was insanely over-crowded with other crabby holiday shoppers. Climbing back into my car in the over-crowded parking lot, I’d encountered even more crabby shoppers jockeying for position. I wanted to roll down the window and yell: Why in the hell are we doing this?!?

Those who don’t know me personally were surprised to learn on Facebook that I don’t enjoy Christmas as much anymore — although one friend sent a private message to applaud my courage for admitting it.

After all, Christmas has become an official American holiday, so it would have been nicer, more politically correct, to keep my mouth shut. From outward appearances, Christmas is all about buying stuff, trying to digest rich foods we shouldn’t eat, spending money we should save, and reenacting Victorian family myths that don’t always work for our own families.

Bashing Christmas, I’m told, is an act of treason — at least to the most patriotic among us.

But there you have it. After years of studying and writing about the history of its varied (and admittedly bizarre) traditions, I’ve come to believe that Christmas is one of the most contradictory holidays anyone could dream up.

For starters, we all know that Jesus wasn’t really born on December 25, and that mistletoe swags and Christmas trees originated with pre-Christian Celtic pagans. Being of Celtic descent, I’m secretly proud of all the trimmings brought to the feast by my ancient ancestors. But I also know that the holiday itself was manufactured by Roman Catholics who wanted to convert the boisterous pagans to Christianity, so, voila, the Winter Solstice festival known as Saturnalia suddenly became Christmas. And so did all the over-the-top feasting and partying that went with it.

Fundamentalist Christians still insist that “Jesus is the reason for the season” — but when you look at the origin of this “holiest of holy days,” you can see that the “season” was also about something else, just as it is today.

Religious faith is not in question here. And I’m not suggesting a return to Winter Solstice revelry, though I think it’s lovely to acknowledge Mother Nature’s changing seasons. I’m just saying that it’s important to consider the origins of all that we choose to celebrate. A few ancient history lessons help to explain the seemingly random blending of Christmas customs such as baking cakes in the shape of yule logs with the tradition of buying computer games and toys for kids.  If Christmas is a time of reflection, we need think on those things too — and what they mean to us.

While I don’t feel a need to explain my religious views or church affiliation here, I do want to add that I have deep respect for Jesus and his teachings.

Which is, partly, why I wonder what the messiah would think of American Christmas rituals and the weird things we do under the guise of celebrating his honorary birthday. If Jesus were to stop by for Christmas dinner, for instance, would he feast on Grandma’s honey baked ham — a meat that’s forbidden by the Scriptures he upheld? (One of my Jewish friends and I had a great conversation about this recently.)  What would he think of all the stuff we buy? Would he be touched or appalled by all those garish plastic nativity scenes imported from China (or the blow-up Frosty the Snowman) displayed on our neighbors’ lawns? Just imagine.

I know there are others like me out there — weary folks who’d prefer to restore some sanity to what is, in essence, a beautiful holiday. I believe it would help if we could unload the emotional baggage and release some of the pressures that arrive in Santa’s sleigh along with all the presents.

A Christmas essay I wrote last year for David Crumm’s “Read the Spirit” explores my conflicted feelings about the season on a much deeper, personal level. I wrote the piece because I wanted my son to understand why I’ve struggled with Christmas every year.  Some of you read it last year, but new readers may have missed it. Please click here if you’d like to read it.

Meanwhile, I really hope you have a great Christmas, however you celebrate. I hope you have some time to be still, reflect, and know your blessings. Wishing you peace. -- Cindy La Ferle

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Banishing the Grinch

Cindy on December 5th, 2010

Then the Grinch thought of something he hadn’t before.  What if Christmas, he thought, doesn’t come from a store?  What if Christmas, perhaps, means a little bit more?” — Dr. Seuss

On Thursday I posted a link to a piece about dealing with grief and loss at holiday time. This week, on Royal Oak Patch, I share a few responses from Facebook friends who answered my question: “What do you like least about Christmas?” I also offer an antidote to the Christmas blues that haunt so many of us this season. Please click here to read it. Next week, I’ll be writing about my year as a background extra in TV and film projects, so there is a break from Yuletide commentary! –CL

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Happy Birthday, Dr. Seuss!

Cindy on March 1st, 2009

“I know it is wet
And the sun is not sunny.
But we can have
Lots of good fun that is funny!”
–Dr. Seuss, The Cat in the Hat

It was the late 1950s, and he put the fun back in reading when he booted Dick and Jane out of my neighborhood. To me, he was (and still is) the wizard of words, the “gandorious” great-uncle of terrific tongue-twisters.

To grown-ups who’ve since become parents, he’s a beloved household icon. His rhymes have thrilled more young bookworms than even he could have imagined. And nobody could imagine things quite like Theodore Seuss Geisel, otherwise known as Dr. Seuss.

His influence is so awesome, in fact, that March 2 — Geisel’s birthday — is designated “Cat in the Hat Day.” Endorsing the holiday, the National Education Association suggests we celebrate by reading to a child tomorrow evening.

Starting in 1937, when he wrote and illustrated his first book, And to Think That I Saw It on Mulberry Street, Geisel found his niche churning out tales of the weird and the whimsical, populating them with squawking fish and top-hatted cats. Even today, few other children’s authors can tickle a four-year-old funny bone as swiftly as Dr. Seuss. Which is why it’s hard to believe that this creator of nerkles and nerds had no kids of his own. Yet he penned 47 children’s books — and sold more than 100 million copies in more than a dozen languages.

Geisel was born in 1904 in Springfield, Massachusetts. His father was a brewer who ran a zoo during Prohibition — a zoo that undoubtedly provided endless fodder for young Geisel’s fantasies. (Geisel, by the way, coined the term “nerd” in If I Ran the Zoo.) In 1925 he graduated from Dartmouth, where he’d drawn cartoons for a humor magazine. While studying literature at Oxford in England, he met Helen Palmer, an American literature student who encouraged him to pursue an art career. For a while he drifted in Paris.

In 1927 he came back to the states to marry Helen Palmer. Though he had planned to write novels, the Depression temporarily derailed his art career, and he resumed writing gags for humor magazines. Though his first attempts to publish had been difficult, by the late 1950s “Dr. Seuss” was producing nearly two children’s books a year. Delighting young baby boomers and their parents, Horton Hears a Who was published in 1954, followed by How the Grinch Stole Christmas and The Cat in the Hat in 1957.

After Helen Palmer’s death in 1967, Geisel married Audrey Dimond and acquired two stepdaughters. He died in 1991 at eighty-seven, with his family at his bedside.

“His contribution was making reading fun again,” says Laurie Harris, a Pleasant Ridge parent and publisher of Biography for Beginners. “The rhythm and warmth of his words stay in a child’s head forever.”

“I like nonsense,” Geisel once said. “It wakes up the brain cells. Fantasy is a necessary ingredient in living; it’s a way of looking at life through the wrong end of a telescope.” But as every fan discovers, Geisel’s “nonsense” isn’t just for kids. His stories are laced with sophisticated messages and illuminating parables, which is why they’re so much fun to read aloud – with or without children.

The Butter Battle Book, for example, tackles the perils of the atomic age. Meanwhile, the uproarious Cat in the Hat gets into big trouble, yet somehow manages to redeem himself and straighten out his messes. Whether we’re nine or seventy-nine, after all, there are many horrific hills to climb and, yes, incredible kooks to reckon with.  — Cindy La Ferle

–This essay was first published March 1, 1998 in The Christian Science Monitor, and is included in Writing Home.–

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