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
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
Cindy on December 15th, 2009
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
A few years ago, one of my editors challenged me to write an essay for the front page of the Christmas Eve edition. He said he wanted a piece as moving and memorable as Francis Church’s famous New York Sun editorial, “Is There A Santa Claus?”
Talk about pressure. I was going through a rough time and had nothing original or inspiring to say about Christmas. But I forged on as best I could. Today I can’t recall much of what I wrote for that assignment, and I’m guessing nobody else does either.
Christmas remains a forced and difficult season for me. Like the chains wrapped around Jacob Marley’s ghostly ankles, the secular pressures of the holiday are sometimes more than I can bear. I resent the marketeers who obligate me to buy gifts I wouldn’t otherwise consider. I resent the magazine editors who suggest that my yuletide performance — decorating, cooking, entertaining, baking — is never quite enough. And I dread the hot waves of guilt that wash over me when I can’t muster expressions of merriment or religiosity on cue.
But I wasn’t always such a Grinch.
Auld Lang Syne
As a kid, I bought into the Santa mythology, and for a short time I believed in magic. In those days, the lyrics to Christmas carols seemed fresh and stirring — partly because my parents never played them until after Thanksgiving. I was even more intrigued by the stories of elves and trolls. I was sure they assisted Santa on his midnight mission throughout the world. I’d stay awake all night on Christmas Eve, listening for them.
Even then, I knew the real wizards behind the Christmas magic were my paternal grandparents and a half-dozen eccentric great-aunts and uncles. Charles Dickens couldn’t top those folks when it came to holiday spirit. All were immigrants from Scotland’s Orkney Islands, and during the 1950s and ’60s, their generous Detroit neighborhood was a rich melting pot representing several nationalities and religious denominations.
My grandparents threw an annual Christmas Eve open house, inviting every relative, neighbor, and friend in the vicinity. The Goodmans, who lived across the street and celebrated Chanukah, always stopped by too. The whole house would expand with the aroma of my grandmother’s cooking and the clamor of jovial visitors — so much so that the windows of their modest brick-and-stone Colonial steamed up and I could print my name with a finger in the watery panes. At some point in the evening, my Aunt Annie, a chain smoker who outlived the other aunts and uncles, performed a Highland sword dance (using the fireplace tools) in the middle of the living room. Later, someone would pound out a chorus of “Auld Lang Syne” on the piano.
Christmas Eve at my grandparents’ house wasn’t about the presents or decorations. These were practical Scots who gifted each other with new underwear and wasted little money on trimmings. Their Christmas was all about community.
Stuffed with shortbread and happiness — and loaded down with boxes of new pj’s and underwear — I’d always return home late with my parents. And if our timing was just right, my dad and I watched the original A Christmas Carol on TV at midnight in black and white.
Holiday grief and loss
My Scottish grandparents — and crazy Aunt Annie — died many years ago. Since then, I married and had my own family, but as hard as I tried, I could never recreate the old-country Christmas festivities at my grandparents’ home.
And after my father’s fatal heart attack in 1992, the whole Christmas season felt like an emotional challenge. I couldn’t predict when a bittersweet line from a favorite carol, or another errant ghost of Christmas past, would bring tears. My family and I continued to celebrate our holidays with my dad’s only brother and my cousins. But when my uncle lost his battle with pancreatic cancer over two years ago, we faced yet another empty chair at our holiday table.
Thankfully, I’ve arrived at a quiet harbor of acceptance. But I still hold a special place in my heart for every soul who’s suffering a recent loss at holiday time. For the grieving or the newly divorced, those festive commercials highlighting family togetherness can seem downright cruel. Not to mention all the ads that suggest everyone in town is throwing a party and you’re not invited.
Regardless, like most women of my vintage, I’ve always understood that one of my duties as a wife and mother was to make the holiday bright for my own family. In retrospect, I think I did a fairly good job of it, and, yes, there were many sparks of genuine Christmas spirit when my son was small. The video my husband recorded of our toddler and me making sugar cookies reminds me that holiday traditions needn’t be over-the-top; that the truly sacred moments are the ordinary moments when we are, to borrow from C.S. Lewis, “surprised by joy.”
And those are the moments I’ll hope to recall in years to come.
Watching my widowed mother this year, I wonder if this will be the last Christmas she’ll remember. Last month she was officially diagnosed with early stages of dementia, and already her memories are jumbled. She’s lucid most of the time — yet she knows something is terribly wrong. She’s losing her hearing and is often depressed or confused. And I know she still misses my dad. It is my job to see that she is cared for and loved, and that she is made as comfortable as possible as we navigate another Christmas.
Redefining tradition
My husband comes from a large family of good people, and for years he’s been lucky enough to rehash the same Christmas traditions and memories with most of them, although his own father was moved to a nursing home this summer.
Aside from the fact that my mother-in-law bakes the best pies in the Midwest, it should go without saying that we need to spend some holiday time on that side of the family tree. My son needs the unconditional love of grandparents and extended family — just as I did years ago. My in-laws, bless them all, also invite my mother to their holiday celebrations. Their tables are always expanding to include new partners, nieces, nephews, stepchildren, and grandkids, and I know that my mom and I are always counted as family in their crowd.
And yet. Whenever I’m toasting Christmas with my in-laws, I can’t quite shake the sense that I’m an orphan looking through a window at someone else’s feast; or an obligatory guest at a cocktail party. These people have holiday memories and histories of their own, and I enjoy hearing them. But their nostalgia is not my nostalgia.
My dear husband reminds me that we do honor our own traditions here at our house — and that we have the power to turn off the Christmas Machine.
A few years ago, we started keeping a (mostly) gift-less Christmas, donating money to our favorite charities in honor of loved ones. And now that our son is grown and living out of state, the highlight of our holiday is his return visit. When he’s back in Detroit, his old friends inevitably wind up at our house, so we also get the chance to reconnect with the kids from the neighborhood.
At some point during the holiday rush, we’ll uncork a bottle of wine or two by the fire with other cherished friends who’ve weathered life’s trials and turning points — not just the holidays — with us. That’s when I’ll remember, as my Scottish grandparents taught me, that a real clan includes dear friends and neighbors, not just the people we’re related to. I’ll take a deep breath and it will hit me that everything is just as it should be, even the imperfect and the undone. Or, as Garrison Keillor once said, “A lovely thing about Christmas is that it’s compulsory, like a thunderstorm, and we all go through it together.” – Cindy La Ferle
–The Grinch in top photo is a gift from my friend Shirley, who adores Christmas just the same. –
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.
