Thursday, December 06, 2007

tis the season

I'm rather ambivalent about Christmas this year. I'm almost ready to call myself a Scrooge or a Grinch. I am participating in the festivities, I am buying presents for people, I'm sending greeting cards (that do NOT say Merry Christmas), don't get me wrong. But I feel like all the Christmas around me is too overwhelming and I need to push back to give myself some breathing room.

Perhaps it's the fact that my in-laws over-decorate so much that it looks like Christmas exploded in the house. I'm drowning in Christmas wreaths and advent calendars and ornaments and nutcrackers and cutesy Santa Clauses and various items that for some reason picked up Christmas significance along the centuries but no one is sure why. (Some were stolen from Yule, of course.) And the nativity sets and the Christmas story books about Jesus that my son begs me to read every day.

Perhaps it's the fact that my son's school class is talking about nothing but Christmas. No Hanukkah, no Kwanzaa, no Yule or Solstice, no Festivus for the Rest of Us. Just Christmas, candy canes, snowmen, reindeer, Santa. At least it's the secular version of Christmas at school.

Last year, I didn't mind the secular version. It was so refreshing that a secular version of Christmas was available at all. I think part of that was because there was such diversity in our town, and in school, my son learned about all the holidays. His best friend, a child of secular Jews, invited him over to light Hanukkah candles one night and read him a secular version of the traditional story. So last year, I felt like we chose to celebrate Christmas, because that was our heritage. We celebrated at home, so we were able to keep Jesus out of it and do things our own way. I even ended up choosing to attend church services (a liberal Protestant church) on Christmas Eve.

This year, it feels more in my face, like Christmas is just pulling me along, whatever I think of it. Personally, I'd rather celebrate Yule and Solstice. But my son? The five year old? He LOVES Christmas, the presents, the festivities, the visiting-Santa-even-though-he's-just-pretend. I've been singing him Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer as a bedtime song all year, at his request. How can I say, "Hold up, dude, we're celebrating the longest night of the year and the return of the sun, mmkay? So no Santa this year"? The momentum of Christmas is a strong current, and I feel helpless in its wake. And that, I think, is why I'm resenting it this year.

5 comments:

Unknown said...

"my son's school class is talking about nothing but Christmas."

ah man, that sucks...

I love my son's school, they spent a whole day on Hanukkah last week, and are going to cover a few other winter celebrations over the next two weeks.

me, I am mostly feeling dragged along in an inevitable consumeristic tide and can't figure out how to gracefully get out. wishing I was JW or something else right now so I could just say "oh, I don't celebrate christmas" and that would be it.

I would love to do Solstice, but DH and son are all about xmas.

good luck.

Unknown said...

I kind of have the opposite situation. My son goes to daycare at a synagogue so it's all Channukah, all the time for us, and he he isn't quote sure who Santa is yet, let alone JC (he's only 2 1/2). We put up a Christmas tree ans stockings last weekend and he thinks they are cool, but so is his his dredel...I guess this is a good thing, he's growing up not assuming one thing is correct, experiencing it all.

Mai said...

And yet another tale of Sandeep. No naughty words this time, though.

My son, age 6, grade 1, came home one nice December day and asked, 'Are we Christians?'

'Darling, you know we're Sikhs.'

'Then why do we celebrate their God's birthday?'

There followed quite a discussion with our rather precocious son. In the end, we never did convince him.

'You said we don't eat meat because we don't think some innocent animal should have to die for us to enjoy ourselves. So why should some innocent tree have to die?'

Kid was too smart.

'But don't you like the presents?'

'Sure, but you guys give me prsents all the time anyway.'

True enough. We didn't wait for special occassions to give gifts.

'What about the lights. I know you like those.'

'Yeah, but why just for Christmas?'

Which explains why we had lights up - inside - all year.

Our son was a purist, but I still liked Christmas.

However, at our family home, it was still a big deal. And Sandeep never turned down a present there!

An Enlightened Fairy said...

I can understand this, I deal with the same thing. My family gives me shit and says, "We hope you're teaching the kids about the real meaning of Christmas... not just about Santa." To which I roll my eyes and say< "Are you kidding me? Santa is great leverage around our house.... works much better than saying 'If you don't believe in Christ, you'll go to hell..." Shuts them up, every time. They know not to go there with me.
Personally, I like Santa. I've told my kids that he's just a man in a suit, but I think they still believe to a certain degree. My oldest has asked from time to time, "Mom, are you SURE that there's no Santa Claus?"
I'm not really worried about it though.
Just keep doing what you're doing. You are a great Mom! mwah!

from the ashes said...

Thanks for you thoughts and support, gals.