Tomorrow is Christmas Eve. Sunday is Christmas Day. Including the one in the following Clause (holiday pun intended), I have now used the word “Christmas” three times in this paragraph. I will hit number four in two more sentences. I believe that should establish my conservative bonafides, maybe even land me a gig on right wing talk radio. Trust me, this will not be a rant about Merry Christmas versus Happy Holidays, our culture’s ideological litmus test for distinguishing between left and right, pluralism and solipsism, inclusion and claims of political correctness. Those pieces of commentary are as abundant as fruitcakes right now and there is nothing new to say. However, if you have not read enough on this subject, I highly recommend E.J. Dionne’s insightful rant in yesterday’s Washington Post.
I want to take this discussion to another level. Why is it that those of us who embrace Christmas, either through faith or inertia, make such a big deal out of it? And it is a big deal, involving weeks of planning and preparation and consternation. This not to undervalue Hanukkah, Kwanzaa, Three Kings Day, St. Lucia Day, the Solstice or any of the other seasonal offerings. On the contrary, they strike me as models of temperate celebration. Christmas is a holiday on steroids.
Many therapists use an intake tool to measure a new patient’s stress level. It assigns points for various traumatic life events experienced within the past year, like death of a parent, divorce, moving, loss of a job and Christmas. Yes, Christmas, the only holiday that comes with stress points. Google “Christmas depression” and you will find 46.4 million entries. Substitute the other holidays for Christmas and you end up with a mere fraction of hits. “Solstice depression,” for example, has only 576,000 offerings and most of them involve Seasonal Affective Disorder, depression from lack of sunlight. Christmas, on the other hand, offers up resources like: “A Depressive’s Guide to Christmas,” “Understanding & Coping with the Christmas Blues,” and “Five Doctor-Approved Tips for Overcoming Christmas Depression.”
Most of those pieces tell the same story: Our expectations for creating perfect moments of euphoric joy and connectedness over a two-or-three-day period are grossly unrealistic and, to one extent or another, destined to fall short. The massive lead-up to Christmas, which seems to start in earnest around Halloween, pulls on our fragile and edited memories of Christmases Past, laced with Norman Rockwellian images and a longing for deep familial bliss. Someone once described this delicate pot of emotions as “being homesick for a place we’ve never been.”
While we ponder, as Mary did, all of these things in our hearts, we return to earth with a jolt on or about December 25. That’s when the whole family gathers and Uncle Ed is drunk again and Cousin Rodney appears in a Trump cap with antlers and Bernie-supporting Niece Glenda pastes a “White Nationalist” sign on Rodney’s back and takes a swig from Ed’s bottle. That’s decidedly not what Norman Rockwell painted. Of course, he, too, was wistfully imagining a place he had never been, having suffered from depression most of his life.
Still, Christmas, even its secular version – with all the negatives attached – is well worth embracing, at least for those who chose to embrace it. Yes, we spend too much, buy too much, give too much. But the ritual pushes us to think of others, to give something to the people who matter in our lives, from family members, to coworkers, to the guy who, in the final days of print journalism, has our newspaper at our door by 6:30 a.m. every day. Donations for the poor skyrocket this time of year because we empathize more than ever with those in need. There is value in caring, even if it’s seasonal. The shrinks are right about tapping down expectations. Even a holiday as potent as Christmas is not going to suddenly and fundamentally alter human nature. What it does is remind us, in a big way once a year, that the essence of life lies more in kindness, love and human connection than in all of those other supposedly important things we throw ourselves into for the other 11 months of the year.
Many years ago, when I was working as a labor union rep, I found a greeting card that poignantly captured this Christmas duality of bliss and lack of permanence. I was so enamored with its raw honesty that I bought several boxes of them. They went, tongue in check, to a select audience of management negotiators I wrestled with over the years. The front bore an idyllic Thomas Kinkade-like scene of snow falling on a gigantic decorated Christmas tree with cherubic ice-skating carolers in the foreground. At the top was this greeting: “This Is A Season of Peace, Love and Understanding!” On the inside came the footnote: “But at 12:01 a.m. on December 26, it’s back to fuck you Charlie.”
In contract negotiations, as in life, you can’t always get a full loaf. Better to capture as many slices as possible than to end up with an empty plate. With that sage advice, I wish those who observe Christmas a very merry one, indeed. To my Jewish friends, Happy Hanukkah. To everyone else, may your special days and celebration bring you joy and happiness. Thank you all for enhancing my life by reading these words every once in a while.