Christmas, Peanuts & someone else’s Snow Day

I'm having fun this Christmas season, as compared to some years past where I could really care less. I have paper snowflakes in my windows, along with lights, and cards on almost every conceivable surface not covered in plant life or books. In a fit of YAY!, last night I went and bought the soundtrack to A Charlie Brown Christmas from Starbucks. And I am thrilled. It's lovely, simple Christmas music and will go nicely with the Bing Crosby CD I ordered from Amazon to replace the one that was destroyed in the gutter truck years ago. Anyway, in the cover appears the following quote:

"Charlie Brown wasn't a happy kid at Christmas 1965. The holidays were supposed to be a time of optimism, of receiving gifts and sending greeting cards. Of choosing and decorating lush, green trees, of spending time with friends and family and of stretching a holiday event into a while month of activity. Growing older, Charlie Brown began to notice the over commercialization of Christmas… 'I think there must be something wrong with me,' he said to his friend Linus."

As I sat here listening to the cool jazz that everyone associates with Charlie Brown and thinking about this, it was brought home even deeper than normal how badly all of the basic ideas of Christmas have deteriorated in the face of commercialism and apathy. Yes, apathy. Although we rush around, desperately trying to find a gift for everyone we think thinks they deserve one from us, trying to fit in concerts and parties and soirees and card writing, I think that a lot of people sink into a well of since-I-bought-them-a-present/went-to-their-party/wrote-them-a-Christmas-card, I don't need to worry about actually talking to them or, heaven forbid, letting them know at some other time in the year that I care about them. Not that I'm guiltless here. I mean, I use Christmas cards to maintain an often tenuous contact with friends that I should by all rights call. But there then, I also use them to try and establish contact with family members that have slowly drifted out of my life. But that's beside the point. The point is that around the holidays we can get apathetic about letting loved ones know that they are truly loved and aren't just a name on a card list, and that we love them all year round.

I guess what I'm saying is that this year I'm more upset than ever about what Christmas is becoming. Not what it has become, not yet, because many people still celebrate the real reason we have Christmas – the birth of the Christ and what that meant to mankind – and many people still experience Christmas as a wonderful time for family and friends. However, you only have to open the newspaper the day after Thanksgiving to see what They (the amorphous They it would be too difficult to define) want us to see as Christmas: a chance to buy the love of our children/parents/friends/spouses and assuage our guilt for past wrongs, the best time of the year to out-do the Joneses, a time to pick through the best sales of the year for the receiver and of course yourself. Christmas is about family and friends, about giving gifts not because we feel obligated to or we want to create a sense of obligation on the part of the receiver but because we want to see that person's smile when they see something we thought long and hard about and finally bought because we honestly thought they would like it. I'm having a great time shopping for my parents this year. I'm totally looking forward to Christmas morning when they open their presents. And it's not because I feel obligated to repay the years of gifts they've gotten me or because I want to one-up my brother (okay, not much); it's because I tell my parents that I love them every year and this is like the icing on the cake, the ……. we're getting Dad and the ……… we're getting Mom.

I think my favorite example this year of what Christmas should really mean in a secular context comes from the Yarn Harlot, who got snowed in a couple days ago, in the middle of a massive knitfest to attempt the finishing of an unbelievable number of projects and last minute shopping. At first she freaked out, but then they invited their neighbors over for cookie-decorating and friendship (you can read about it here. Look for the Snow Day entry). That is Christmas. Frantic last minute shopping, not Christmas, no matter what the "comedies" would like us to think. Christmas is a time for gathering together and being thankful for everyone we have and for everything we have been given. I am now stepping off my soap box for the evening.

Note: So many aspects of the over-commercialization of Christmas drive me crazy that I had to leave several of them out, or this post would have been HUGE and I know Zach never reads my long blogs. I'm having fun with Christmas but every time I hear about "the new big thing" I just want to swear off Christmas presents for the next few years.