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.
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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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.
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I do hear you...
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.
Re: I do hear you...
Beautifully said, and I agree.
Re: I do hear you...
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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...
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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.
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I understand what you mean. I do my best to ignore that part and just hum along with the carols.
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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.:)
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I will eat them until I sicken at the very sight of them...
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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As Eliot said, "in my end is my beginning".