Tuesday, November 21, 2006

What The Devil Is Christmas Anyway?

Am I the only person in the world who doesn't get Christmas?
What's it for?
Wasn't it supposed to be a Christian festival many moons ago?
If it's not that anymore, what is it?
You say Happy Christmas, but if it is just another day in the calender and no longer represents anything, isn't that the same as saying Happy Tuesday?
If Christmas is just what it appears to be, some kind of celebration, what is it a celebration of? Capitalism?
I'm supposed to show you I care about you by buying you the new Pirates of the Carribean dvd? What does the gift I get you demonstrate other than my buying power? And how do I acquire the buying power I have? by being resolutely good all year? (see previous post--you can call me an old leftie if you want, but it seems to me that the higher your buying power, the more a) morally compromised or b) plain evil, you are likely to be.)
I'm sorry, I'm not trying to be clever here, but I really don't understand what Christmas is about.
Is it now the season before December 25th? all the shopping, the decorations, the adverts on tv, the zillionth replaying of "Merry Christmas Everybody"? Is it all the parties, the drinking, the eating, the puking? Some way of lifting the winter blues?
I think I may have answered my own question.
It's pagan again, only without the spiritual angle the pagans brought to the festival, which--let's face it--was theirs before the Christians stole it.
But I'll be honest, I miss the religious element.
I want to feel something, when the giant trees go up in the town centre. I want a vision.
I expect to talk to an angel sometime over Christmas and feel the radiant warmth of God washing over me. That's what Christmas is supposed to be about.
I can fall down and puke on my own shoes any day of the year. And frequently have.

5 comments:

Anonymous said...

I can't stand it. But what's worse is New Years's Eve -- now that's some sickening shit.

Christmas and New Years allow all the boring and predictable people to become even more boring and predictable -- and that's why they love it so much; they're in their element.

Bobby said...

I remember your story about how, one Christmas, you had to walk a horrid distance through terrible cold to go to work. That story has stuck with me. It reminded me of a rough Christmas or two I've spent.

There's no doubt about it: It's a rough time for many.

In recent years, I've been trying to define these holidays for my self, using their most fundamental or ideal definitions and I try to listen to songs like Nat King Cole's The Christmas Song (Merry Christmas to You) as often as possible. My two sisters and I inherited a wealth of Christmas tunes in various formats - I'll be listening to some corny old Christmas classics, I believe.

Bruce Hodder said...

Janey,
That's what I'm going to do, I think. Every year I complain about Christmas being materialiastic and then sit back and wait for my presents--bloody hypocrite! So I'm going to take a leaf out of your book. It will help my karma and it will also help whoever might be buying me a gift (small list!) Thanks, J. As ever you talk with great wisdom.
You should put some of these stories down and try to get them published somewhere, by the way. As a non-fiction commentary on America or the world or something. I've never read anybody write as eloquently about these themes as you do.

Bruce Hodder said...

Glenn,
Yeah, the most uninteresting people are in their element in the run-up to Christmas. The Christmas party I went to for work last year was such a bust I drank all the way thru dinner and then went home without telling anybody where I was going. People thought something had happened to me. At the point where the septuagenarian deejay got onto the mic and started playing fucking Abba and Queen and whoever else, and all of the ugly people started rushing to the dance floor with looks of ecstatic gratitude and sudden social liberation on their faces, I remember thinking: "Oh my God. I am in Hell."
This year I ain't going. I'd rather sit at home and watch my old "Kung Fu" dvds.

Bruce Hodder said...

Bobby,
But yeah, having said the above, I also have a weakness for the Christmas songs. Sinatra, Crosby, Dean Martin even...and Elvis' Christmas songs are the dog's nuts. So I will undoubtedly be filling my house with those before too long. But I've misplaced my copy of the Pogues' "Fairytale of New York"--another favourite--but if I'm not as broke as I think I am I will replace it before the season is out.