The Spirit of Christmas

When I wrote the following, my intent was to have it ready for publishing on Christmas day. However, as “upbeat” as I wanted it to be, I let the reality of spending yet another Christmas alone get to me in the end. But after re-reading it this morning, I’ve decided that it’s still worth publishing. I hope you think so too.

Christmas is probably the most depressing time of the year for me. I know it sounds paranoid, but I swear that society has deliberately designed it to gradually pile on layer after layer of all the things that disgust me the most about our lives. I’ve never been able to decide which is worst, stuffing our children’s brains full of irrational beliefs, or providing them with prime examples of how to be wasteful and greedy little narcissistic pigs.

Now I know I’ve written plenty of times about how crazy I think the whole religion thing is. And if I were actually crazy myself, I might get some kind of sick satisfaction from the fact that religion is not our kid’s primary focus during the Christmas season. But even on my worst days, I can’t see how it does any good to replace the image of the infant “son of God” being born to rule the world, with the image of a magical fat man, that lives at the north pole and is able to fly around the world, in a sleigh pulled by reindeer, delivering toys to all the “good” kids in a single night.

And as far as the effects of the season in the “real world” are concerned, the whole end of the year “holiday season” has become a pitifully desperate attempt, by our business culture, to use their monstrously distorted version of Capitalism to leverage the people’s good will just to keep it’s financial head above water, thus allowing them to continue ignoring the fact that it’s precisely their twisting and distorting of Capitalism, in combination with the people’s “well intended” but poorly conceived political actions, that has landed them in such a desperate place to begin with.

However… The Christmas season does have one thing going for it that, despite all the negatives, still gives it the potential for so much good. And that is that it can bring people together to share the thrill of doing something to brighten each other’s lives. And as hard-core as I can sometimes seem, that we all can sometimes seem, I believe that, deep down, we all want to be a source of goodness and light in the world.

Back in my More Environmental Impact post, I talked a little about my disappointing experiences with Christmas as a child. But what I didn’t talk about were the extremes I went to, as a parent myself, to ensure that Christmas was not such a disappointment for my kids. And, for a family that could just barely pay the bills, the lengths I went to were extreme indeed! So I know what I’m talking about when I speak of the irrational behaviors that this season can seduce us into.

Now I know that it has occurred to at least some of you that, despite my ranting about it’s dangers, I too have been influenced by the kind of “magical” thinking that is reflected so heavily during the Christmas season. I think that, for me, it started in my childhood with all of those TV shows and movies depicting people who were somehow able to bring happiness and enrichment to the world despite their own serious shortcomings. And I also think that this is the reason why shows like that – which seem to be on 24 hours a day, on every channel, during this season – can be so painful for me watch. But in spite of my misgivings, I did manage to watch a few of them this year, and even managed to enjoy them without having to resort to the “chemical enhancements” that I’ve needed in the past. This, hopefully, is a sign of further progress in my recovery.

There were a couple of scenes that really got to me though – in a good way, amazingly enough. One was in The Santa Clause 2, where Tim Allen decides to play “Secret Santa” at his son’s school faculty Christmas party. Could there ever be a group more in need of a revitalized Christmas spirit? And who wouldn’t love to have the power to provide them all with precisely the Christmas gift that they had longed for since they were kids themselves? I was wiping tears from my eyes for quite a while after that!

The other was at the end of Jingle All The Way, where Arnold Schwarzenegger, after going through all sorts of hell trying to get the “Turbo Man” action figure that his son wanted so much, finally saves the day by taking down the bad guy (played by Sinbad gone postal!) as Turbo Man himself, in all his techno-powered glory! Now what dad would pass up a chance to be such a hero to his son? And yes, I had a few tears to wipe away after that too. That is, after I finally stopped laughing!

We have all heard it said that “We have lost the true Spirit of Christmas.” I really believe that it is so. I also realize that, to some, it may appear that what I’ve said here is somewhat contradictory. But no, I am not a Grinch trying to spoil Christmas for everyone, and neither am I advocating some alternate fantasy of the Christmas Spirit ideal. What I’m really trying to do is provide a gentle a reminder of both how we want to feel at Christmas, and how we hope to make others feel at Christmas. To me, that is the true Spirit of Christmas.

I want ice water.