#56: of the Christmas Spirit

The Earth orbits a star and turns slowly in the darkness. Starlight warms its face, and the tiny things crawling on the Earth's surface stretch themselves out in the sand and grassy surfaces to drink from a ball of fire. Great masses in space move in accordance with each other -- We move away from the Sun, the Earth rocks on its sleepy axis, warmth spreads Southward.

We the tiniest of beings compared to a star make light of our own in the darkness - we drape the light across our door frames, in our windows, over our trees and inside our pumpkins. We create our Holidays, every one of us insignificant things makes our own celebration inside the scope of these Holiday seasons. We make tradition that keeps us warm under three layers of fuzzy cloth. We make the moves that others make, we hang bows and ornaments and allow ourselves to fall into the spirit until it happens naturally with age when the season rises inside us without needing to confirm the calendar. We believe.

Halloween is easy for me, because I creep all year long. But in the cool dead wind of Halloween I get to watch from the inside as more creeps pop out of the woodwork. I let a certain spirit take over, consume me, so I can really get the best out of it. I scare children (accidentally at first), I make them cry (never on purpose), I think about mortality and I'm sure it thinks about me too. I notice how much older I am. Halloween passes. My emotional energy reflects the tan of a wet after-Halloween autumn.

Thanksgiving I'm so glad to just eat and relax. I can feel the residual Catholicism start bubbling up in my stomach and behind my heart like I should be doing something more than napping away a turkey hangover. Soon the religious weight will rest fully on my shoulders. Christmas approaches. Bright lights are turned on to dispel the gloom in the weather. The wetness everywhere scatters light cast off by decorations creating a world in starburst neon '50s bulbs and twinkling white icicle lights.

By three weeks before Christmas I am excited to go to church, excited though not exactly ready this week. I want it to be Christmas so I can attend candlelit midnight mass with my family. Like many a la carte Catholics I can absorb so much spiritual energy in the winter months I don't have to go again till Easter. It is some angelic force that wants me to believe in something when my window frosts over, and I am receptive to this force. I want to believe in people with bird wings, and fat children who fly with white sparkly wings strapped to their shoulder blades. I know other people feel the spirit too. But it's a different spirit, a mean one.

They show it on their front lawns in the form of huge Christmas light covered crosses. Signs underneath read: "Keep Christ in Christmas," angled toward the street corner so it defies the laws of mathematics and is readable from three hundred and sixty degrees. This is not the same spirit I feel, in fact the cherubs in my mind scatter at the first sign of this concrete religious fact-on-front-lawn. This is the spirit I reject; this is the spirit that offends me. It's a matter of fact foot in the ground that this is real, and it makes me wonder.

Last night I attended "a Holiday Extravaganza!" which turned into something other than Holiday and a little more forced than I feel Extravaganzas should be. It was in truth a very nice show.

Some songs were sung by children, and while our host chuckled, "there's nothing better than children singing at Christmas," I was not given the forum to answer or disagree. One song in particular about Santa being on a diet was fairly secular and I could agree that yes, Santa is fat and yes, he is lugging hand weights around. Another sung by the Fisk Jubilee singers was religious but not oppressive "Go tell it on the mountain that Jesus Christ is born." It is historical to a story, it is true. Another described a star in the sky, and on one occasion a country musician forgot half of the chorus of Jesus' birth story. I saw it fitting that after telling us that Jesus is the reason for the season, he forgot the reason.

The same man asked us to join him singing Silent Night and Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas, and cupped his hand to his ear as the audience half-way retreated to silent protest. Some sang along cheerfully. Many looked uncomfortable. A few seated close to me mouthed the words as if to sing, though no sound issued from their false lips. We knew the words, they were printed in our brochures just in case we had forgotten, though we could not be encouraged to sing them together. The tunes were not difficult, though the competing voices of the children's choir, Fisk Jubillee singers, Jazz band, three solo performers, and orchestra might have cloaked the silence drawn from the audience. We could not sing them together because we did not all feel the message, we did not all hear the words ringing in our souls and have that minty burning in our guts to punch the song out of each of us.

Dr Seuss looked down from a cloud filled with naked cherubs in the uncomfortable silence, and I think he smiled.

"Jesus is the reason for the season," said the man in the tan stitched cowboy hat. Many in the audience could sing this with him in a mostly perfect pitched harmony, it is true for a lot of people, though Jesus is not the only reason. Some other reasons are presents, snow, money, cold, family, new clothes and warm filling food. Other reasons are other religions and other symbols and other messages and other seasons entirely.

Another reason is a man who was born in 270 AD and died December 6th, 347. His name was Nicholas of Bari, and he gave anonymous presents to the poor. Children around the world used to receive presents on the day of his death to celebrate a life of giving to those in need, but the celebration was moved to December 25th to cover a pagan holiday and combined with the celebration of the birth of Jesus in the year 336 (which may or may not have been December 25th). 1600 years later it was castrated of religion to increase the spread of capitalism with the addition of our modern Santa Claus, which subsequently succeeded.

During the Holiday Extravaganza we were asked three times if we had purchased all our Christmas presents. The audience cheered and groaned. It was as if by attending we had made this unspoken social contract that all of us were Christian, Capitalist and had loved ones and anyone who wasn't would not speak against the crowd. A couple groaned because they hadn't bought presents yet.

Some of this is just show business and glamour. Some is a falseness of total agreement is for the sake of cameras and sponsors. There were some very touching moments through the night. A friend of the family sang in front of a full orchestra with her husband backing with the jazz band on trombone; A man performed Truman Capote's A Christmas Memory (the original Christmas Sweater) backed by the host of the evening on classical guitar. The guitar played the characters into being, long open sludge chords for the man who sold our narrator grain alcohol for fruitcakes, as the days before Christmas were described without shadows and beautifully performed.

Some of this spirit is for people who need to be reminded or saved. It's religious and economic peacock-ing. It's offensive. For Americans who choose not to believe in the same definitions of Christmas it is something to be avoided, and they are mocked with Christmas-tree-lighted crucifixes. These Americans are Pagan and Hebrew and Atheist. They are tired from overworking and don't like the smell of pine and they can't buy Christmas gifts this year. And they don't want to celebrate Christmas. It is entirely in their right as one of the equal tiny specks on the face of Earth to celebrate its time in shadow thinking about shadows instead of the loudly proclaimed son of god.

There are many ways to say Merry Christmas for those who do not share these family-centric American Christian Christmases, but I prefer it in other languages. Feliz Navidad is good, because you know what I mean, but it's not exactly the Merry Christmas you'll get from some. It is my Christmas I wish you, Feliz Navidad, I ask that you speak to someone who doesn't believe the things you do - to disagree and smile. To love your cousin for his differences, not the things you share. This holiday season keep Christ in Christmas if you choose, but don't ask me to.