poliphilo | Seasonal Thoughts

Seasonal Thoughts

The leaves are still on the trees and they've already started playing Adestes Fideles in the mall.

There's no point complaining. This is now an established fact of life in the West. Christmas is a season that lasts a good two months. Everyone says they hate it, but they can't really or they'd put a stop to it, wouldn't they? Or are the commercial powers that rule us beyond the reach of popular appeal?

Going down Oldham high street yesterday I noticed the big, old Christmas crib is in place.

And the Post Office has launched its Christmas stamps. The Church of England- which used to be so mellow but is now increasingly evangelical and shrill (I'm so glad I quit when I did)- was complaining at an official level about there being no images of the baby Jesus.

As if thrusting religious images under people's noses would somehow make them more spiritual.

A couple on TV were complaining, in the context of the rise in interest rates, how Christmas was putting a huge strain on their finances. "So don't spend as much!" I yelled at the screen.

Christmas isn't compulsory. When we were Witches we celebrated the Solstice and treated Christmas Day as if it was any old week day. It's tough- I'm not sure I'd recommend it- but shut you eyes and hold your arms tight by your side and when the Gadarene rush has gone by, in its haze of Johnny Mathis and Jonah Louis, you'll still be standing.

Christmas made me happy once; I was four at the time. Since then it's always been a disappointment or worse.

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Advent and Christmas will always remain my favorite time of year, and I will continue to be disappointed and saddened by how all those immediately surrounding me act; both by what they do and what they do not. The challenge, which I have yet to successfully meet, is to retain and connect in some way with the magic of promise and wonder that instilled this love in me as a small child.

I treasure my childhood experience of Christmas, but don't expect to ever have it again- not in this world, anyway.

When you work where I do, Christmas is a day of rest in the very truest sense. No work. No students. No exams (which begin on the 11th and go right through till the 22nd).

I used to enjoy the ceremony, in the days when I sang in choir. I can remember sitting in the choir loft (which is in the front of the church) and watching the candlelight come forward in the church at the Candlelight services.

And I even like some Christmas songs - NOT Johnny Mathis, though.

But on a whole, it's a season fraught with intense emotion (finals) and totally exhausting. To begin it before the first day of December just makes it longer and more exhausting.

I used to push for candlelit services, but my churchwardens took a health and safety approach and insisted on turning the main lights on after a minute or two.

And I don't spend much, not that it changes anything.

I must confess though that when the year starts to wind down and the weather goes to mostly grays, I kind of enjoy the little extra lift of all the music, the jubilation, the activity, and the reds and greens.

I must confess though that when the year starts to wind down and the weather goes to mostly grays, I kind of enjoy the little extra lift of all the music, the jubilation, the activity, and the reds and greens.

Beautifully said, and I agree.

I don't totally hate Christmas. What I find oppressive is the corporate overkill. The ads for toys, the piped music in public places, the pressure to spend and be happy.

I was remembering this morning how you like to decorate during this season because you like, I think you said, shiny things--and the reason I remembered was that I decided to get down some shiny stuff of my own from the attic and set it out, a little at a time.

I have cardboard Christmas houses, some of them faded or squashed or with their cellophane windows missing, but they still look pretty on that cotton batting that has glinting bits of metal embedded to look like sparkling snow...I thought I'd start with that.

Christmas season is lovely; the day itself is just awful sometimes--people packing up and leaving, gifts that didn't work, seeing people looking sad in corners, worrying that no one is sad for that matter...

Yes, I do like shiny things. I'm looking forward to getting the Christmas tree out. We have a new one this year.

I understand what you´re saying. But I was brought up in a family where Christmas had lovely traditions I still honor in my own family. I am the child of Polish Catholics and while I long ago left off the Catholic part, I still love the old customs of my grandparents and great grandparents. There really is something at year´s end when it´s dark and dreary (not so much where I am now in southern Spain but where I´m from in Michigan, USA)that is brightened by the celebration. That said, we do not spend large amounts on gifts nor do we force togetherness or "spirit" (whatever that is). I am happy this year because my younger daughter who lives in the States will join us. That could happen at any time during the year, obviously, but she and I always shared a complicity at Christmas that I miss now that she´s on her own and not here.

My relationship with Christmas is complicated by my having had a big mid-life bust-up with Christianity.

I'm largely over that now. And I can see the point of having a midwinter festival to brighten things up.

What I hate are the corporate, commercial, social pressures. I feel I'm being leaned on.

What I hate are the corporate, commercial, social pressures. I feel I'm being leaned on.

I understand what you mean. I do my best to ignore that part and just hum along with the carols.

Living in Japan for several years, and then Hawaii several years after that, popped me out of the normal holiday mindset. I've slowly been getting them back, and it's a Whole New Relationship.

I like Christmas, but not for stuff (since I pretty much don't get or give presents), but for being with family. And Christmas cookies.:)

I like Christmas pudding. And mince pies.

I will eat them until I sicken at the very sight of them...

They do Christmas early over here in Japan as well. I heard my first Christmas song from a department store a week ago. Shinjuku Southern Terrace put up its lights last week too- which are more kind of circus weirdness than Christmas, but it's all still very Christmasey.

I like Christmas though. We start getting psyched up for it at the same time it really starts to turn cold, and dismal, and the days get shorter. Around Wednesday this past week was the first day I left the house and thought- hmm, this is COLD now. Not just cool, but cold. Around the same time, Christmas starts happening.

The dates I don't like are Valentine's Day and New Year's Eve. Those are the days I feel pressure to feel a certain feeling, and then feel that if I didn't feel that feeling, then I'm a loser. I've never liked the New Year's rush to go out, get drunk, be in some big bar and celebrate the New Year in with a communal roar and kissing random people. I kind of hate that. But avoid it or steer too clear, and you feel like a big loser.

Valentine's Day too. I hate that feeling of obligation to 'be loved'. What if you're not? If you have no partner? Gotta be the most miserable day of the year, with all those other couples busy necking and taking romantic walks. Are they faking it? Or does the commercial hype really bring out all the love in them, on that one random day?

Christmas though I like.

I've never bothered with New Year's Eve. Most years I just go to bed at the normal time. I made an exception for the Millennium, but otherwise, what's the big deal?

It's rather the same with Valentine's Day. I dunno, I find I'm quite good at ignoring commercial hype. if I had a partner at the time I bought them a card, if I hadn't, I didn't.

Mind you, I like being in love- so there was usually somebody- even if I was kidding myself.

But Christmas is sooo huge. Even I have problems pretending it's not happening.

My mother fell twice on Saturday, both times in front of me. (I was reminded later of your story about your kitchen fire, how you stood transfixed, raising a single eyebrow like Spock, thinking, "What does this mean?" because I couldn't reach her in time.)

Anyway, my sister and I spent all Sunday afternoon and evening cleaning her living room (waxing, washing curtains, cleaning windows and sills) and then putting up every Christmas decoration she had, including the Christmas village she likes to put in the built-in bookshelves above the fireplace. Both of us have a sense this may be her last Christmas in her house--Janice and Keith have already remodeled and made her an entire apartment, which is ready for her--

Mother sat on the sofa like a little girl, watching us do all the work, and her only task was to decide which fancy ornaments to choose, and even that wasn't easy--her back was hurting so much she could hardly move.

My nephew came by, as he sometimes does to visit her, on his way to curling, and he strung the lights for us.

So Mother will have a very early start to the Christmas season this year.

A reply to an old post of yours (one of your poems lead me to this part of your archived posts, to read more entries).

I have a strange thing with Christmas. I like it on alternate years. This year I'd love to open my arms to it (though not in the religious sense, because though I don't practice my religion, I am still Jewish and it still 'feels odd') but I'll by then have been off the Valium for all of two weeks and don't think it would be very wise to put myself out there in case... oh, all sorts of 'in case's'...

For me, Christmas is a social occasion, a way of drawing family and friends together. I wasn't allowed a christmas tree by my mum (cos of being Jewish), and didn't go to a Christmas dinner til long after I got together with the man who became (and still is) my husband - and then we went to Christmas dinner with his parents and I felt drawn into something very warm. That's what I associate with Christmas.

On the other hand, I don't like all the commerciality of it. I don't believe in Jesus, I'm not a Christian, but I do think that for the example he was supposed to have set, the least his followers could do is follow him and not turn his birth into a sham.

A few years ago, I started giving my own belongings as Christmas presents, it felt better than buying stuff new. Then for a couple of years I gave to charity instead. This year... I don't know. I think I'm just going to wing it.

This year (2007) we're going to stay with my mother and eat Christmas dinner with my sister. It'll be the sort of Dickensian Christmas- with three generations present- which I last experienced some 30 years ago. I believe I'm looking forward to it.

As Eliot said, "in my end is my beginning".

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