This is a recap of a journal entry I was enticed to write this morning.
Every year, sometimes multiple times per year, I get a nagging feeling that something has gone horribly wrong with Christmas. Iāve hated this for years. My opinion feels rude. My opinion asks me to point fingers at friends and family, screeching youāre not doing it right. Iām afraid that the friends I share this opinion with will assume Iām trying to make a scene, or worse: that Iām just being cheap. But this year Iām celebrating that I am a fully formed human with thoughts and opinions that maybe donāt line up with othersā. And I also have a sneaking suspicion that Iām not alone thinking about Christmas this way.
So here it goes.
Something has gone horribly wrong with Christmas. This isnāt just old āthe holidayās have become so commercializedā trope. Except that its exactly that. But Iām finally ready to dissect this and expose its vulnerable insides for all to see.
When I was a child, my dad took me on a mission to get my mom the perfect Christmas gift, one that was better than heād gotten last year. He had settled on a four foot tall Santa figurine. My Mother was (and still is) obsessed with collecting these creepily realistic Santa figurines. The more ālifelikeā the better.
This little obsession is probably a whole other essay; my mothers collection of dusty Santa figurines is just capitalism masquerading as nostalgia. Anyway, back to the hunt.
Somewhere between the towering Santas and cinnamon scented candles, I was suddenly very aware that this was a game that could not be won. If we succeeded in get this Santa, the perfect Santa, what would her gift be next year? And then the year after that? Even though I didnāt have words for it yet, my body understood something was wrong. The impossibility of sustainability came crashing down and suffocating anxiety overwhelmed my nine year old body. At the time, I couldnāt quite put my finger on why or what I was feeling, but hindsight and therapy have provided some answers.
Cue the rest of my childhood and early adult life. People would get me gifts that I didnāt want or need, and usually didnāt have space for. So the trinkets would sit around collecting dust, until they were invariably re-homed or disposed of. I would dread receiving gifts because of the disposal steps I would be responsible for. Ultimately these things that I received would end up in a landfill, and I hated that.
I got stuck here for a while. I sat on this gnawing feeling because I sound so dang ungrateful and spoiled, even entitled when I voice this concern. How dare I tell someone what they can give me? How dare I turn down generosity?
And thatās the rub. Giving a gift comes from wanting to share abundance, and becomes more beautiful when we have less to give. But Christmas presents are no longer a response to abundance, and they are currently baked into society. People ask children months in advance what they want for Christmas. This builds expectation and entitlement, removing the genuine joy of receiving an authentically given gift. This overt commercialization removes the authentic need to share, and replaces it with an obligation ā a kind of social tax. The tax payment is hollow, and borders on unholy.
Weāve all been fooled into thinking that the āSpiritā of Christmas in embodied in giving people presents at Christmas. And it is, kind of. Weāre not entirely wrong. The Spirit of Christmas does love generosity and embodies it. Where folks go wrong, I think, is in the authenticity. The moment you feel obligated to give the meaning drains out of the gift. That sense of obligation makes this whole thing a self licking ice cream cone, always eating but not nourishing a single soul.
Obligation by itself isnāt evil. An obligation to help can suture a broken society when it forces us to remember why the obligation exists. However, the inauthenticity ratchets up when people start manically shopping for Christmas presents. We wrap plastic in more plastic, we literally fight over the hottest item, and we hand children toys that will be broken, forgotten, and in a landfill or cluttering closets by spring. Between the required shopping, the non-stop advertising, and crazed holiday schedules, we rarely have time to stop and remember why weāre doing any of this.
Forgetting is a real shame because celebrating community is the most important part of human culture. Doing it during the darkest and scarcest time of the year is an ancient and powerful tradition. The celebration reminds us about what enough is, and reminds us not to sit atop our dragon hoard, guarding abundance instead of sharing it.
Christmas itself has turned into the dragon guarding its gold. You can see it in children who are just copying what was modeled by adults. Iāve seen children melt down when they donāt get what was expected or what theyāve said they āwantedā. Cue the scene in Harry Potter when Dudley counts his presents and realizes there are fewer packages than the year before. Thatās the greedy dragon presenting itself. Adults see and feel that greed too, weāre just better at keeping it quiet.
How do I reconcile the importance of winter celebration with this growing unease? What should Christmas look like, if not this?
I donāt want to abandon the season. Sharing in darkness shouldnāt be abandoned. But I imagine something smaller, slower, more intimate. I imagine a tradition where we gather and share a meal where everyone contributes, bond with some singing and story telling, and maybe give through acts of service. At least helping a neighbor, even when done out of a sense obligation some years, wonāt add to the dragonās hoard of (often plastic) waste. Wonderful ways to serve might include offering to mend their clothes, repair their car, or change out their phone screen. It could also look more structured and like volunteering at a soup kitchen, or maybe just caroling in the street.
I can also imagine a day spent in nature, during the dark time of year, noticing how nature is resting and resetting, perhaps taking a lesson home from that. Maybe I spend a day walking in the woods, or at the beach, or if none of those sacred spaces are available, just outside walking around the neighborhood. I plan to decorate with special found items made from nature to celebrate the sustainable abundance we find all around us. A pine cone, a spectacular rock, a wreath made of fresh pine boughs to remind me that abundance doesnāt have to be purchased.
Buying things that are meant to be discarded feels like an affront to the holiday. Christmas is really about celebrating abundance when scarcity is close at hand. I aim to do just that in the future.
During my time in Antarctica, Christmas is usually spent eating, drinking, singing, playing games (Catan, Ass-Ratchet), and occasionally if the weather allows - which it usually does - hiking. There is often a white elephant gift exchange. Iām not overly opposed to this particular collection of junk, since the gifts are generally either consumable or meant to be enjoyed by the entire field team or even future field teams (mermaid costume, hula girl, lots of booze, kites). These holiday celebrations, absent the fervent manic shopping spree really do encapsulate Christmas a bit more, though the light is long down there.
Lean Economy The right to repair Independent community
This could maybe be an excerpt in š§ Core Truths