I am a bit of a Grinch when it comes to Christmas. I’m sure part of that is because I haven’t had children and now, at my age, that means no grandchildren. Really, isn’t it children that make Christmas special? Especially early on, when Santa is the great provider. Throughout my childhood, I loved Christmas. I can remember counting the weeks and days. There were the rituals of finding just the right tree and the trip to Wanamakers Department Store in Philadelphia, where the Christmas decorations created an amazing world of snow and costumes, music and pageantry. Santa Claus was there on the second floor, with his red, fur-trimmed suit and white beard, taking note of hundreds of children’s wishes. I asked for a pair of dungarees, and then, there they were there on Christmas morning. Wouldn’t it be nice if all our wishes were so pleasantly and directly fulfilled? I guess growing up is realizing that that’s not always going to happen.
I suppose we can all remember the Christmas when the Santa myth dissolved. For me it involved a red wagon that I spied through the keyhole in the locked door of the room that held my mother’s Christmas preparations. When it appeared on Christmas morning as a gift from Santa, my suspicions regarding the guy with the reindeer and the workshop at the North Pole were confirmed.
As I grew up and moved to Boston, I almost always went home for Christmas. My father had a succession of wives, each thinking that it was her duty to decorate the house, provide appropriate gifts, and entertain. I felt obliged to go along with the program but would always escape to help my sister, who had two kids. She and her husband both worked full time, so Christmas, as it so often is for working families, was a scramble to buy and wrap gifts, find a Christmas tree, maybe take the kids to see Santa. Christmas Eve was an event, and Christmas dinner was an event. Which family came when? There always seemed to be some tension. I recall one Christmas morning seeing two boys rip through their presents like two little cyclones. They hadn’t taken time to even look at their new possessions, and they sat on the littered floor in the living room and asked, “Is that all there is?”
Finally, I realized that I didn’t have to spend Christmas with my family and started going skiing instead. Of course, a sense of obligation took me back from time to time, but my best memories of December 25 are of being in Vermont with friends, forgetting everything but the pleasure of skiing down a snowy mountainside.
So I wonder about this holiday—which seems to be more about stuff and stress than spirit. The buildup is long and relentless, the aftermath often a case of “is that all there is?” or “thank God that’s over.” And, God does get into this somewhere—lest we forget, it’s Jesus’s birthday, but what would Jesus make of this celebration? Would he sanction all the hype? Would he like listening to singing chipmunks or seeing lavish displays of lights or feeling the angst that comes along with needing to measure up to some standard of celebration?
This year I’m giving the next generation of children in my family the information that their gifts are going to children in the third world in the form of mosquito nets and bicycles. I hope they’re old enough to appreciate this kind of sharing, but if not, it comforts me to think that gift giving can reach beyond family and friends.
And, yes, here at home, I will hang some lights to brighten the dark nights, and I will prepare Christmas dinner. I will even give a few tangible gifts. “T’is the season,” after all.
Merry Christmas.