It’s Beginning to Look a Lot Like…

I celebrate Christmas but I recognize that others don’t and I’m okay with that. So I’m more than willing to wish a Happy Holidays to those who celebrate Chanukkah or Kwanzaa or some other variety, or nothing at all. To those who do celebrate it: Merry Christmas!

That’s really not relevant to anything else, but I wanted to say it.

With all of the gang gathered here last year, there was barely room
for all the stockings on the mantle.

This year Christmas is going to be different for us (my husband and I). For the last forty-some years, Christmas for our family has centered around our house, the one our children grew up in. The presents accumulated under our tree and everyone gathered here on Christmas Eve to hang stockings and then again on Christmas morning for cinnamon rolls and breakfast quiche before present-opening would begin. There’s always been lots of loud music, raucous games, laughter, and activity.

Even as our kids grew up, got married, and began their families, we always had one or more of them, with spouses and babies, here for the day. This year will be different. Our youngest daughter lives in northern Indiana and had her third child this year. It’s no longer practical for them to travel hundreds of miles each way to spend the holiday with parents.

Our only son moved to England some ten years ago, and married a lovely young Englishwoman. They have an 18-month-old daughter and a second child on the way. They actually did fly over for Christmas last year, but this year they’ll spend the holiday with her family in Kent.

Fortunately our oldest daughter lives close by, so we’ll likely go to her home Christmas morning, taking along our gifts. We’ll join her, her husband, two grown children, and her adult stepdaughter. Dinner will be at our place, since they don’t have a dining area large enough to accommodate everyone.

I’m really very glad that all of my kids have grown up to be wonderful people, and I’m thrilled they’ve all found someone to love, who loves them in return. I’m delighted to be grandmother to six lovely kids (and counting). This is what every parent wants for their children.

But it will still be an oddly quiet Christmas. On the other hand there should be more time for reading and writing.

Who knows? Maybe next year we’ll travel ourselves and celebrate Christmas on Indiana or in England.

 

Christmas Wishes

by Janis Susan May/Janis Patterson

No, I’m not starting my 2015 Christmas list early. I’m still hung up on this past Christmas season, except that we really don’t have a Christmas season any more.

I can hear you gasping. No Christmas season? The stores fill with merchandise before Halloween, and the commercials earlier than that. Christmas trees bloom in parking lots before Thanksgiving. Christmas parties pile on and overlap each other like shingles. It probably won’t be long before Christmas and Back to School start stepping on each other’s toes.

That’s not what I am talking about. Merchandising campaigns are not a season. Christmas is supposed to be about loving and sharing and a celebration of family. (And yes, the religious celebration which is the reason for the season, but I’m not going to preach sectarianism or even doctrine.)

So what am I talking about? Now we have hysterical shopping, multiple parties, frenzied gift wrapping and, the culminating centerpiece, Christmas Eve and Christmas Day. Christmas Eve is anticipation; children determined to go to bed for once (or stay awake and see Santa) and Christmas Day itself is a tsunami of shredded gift wrap and ritualized overeating. Then it’s over. Nothing looks sadder than a Christmas tree, denuded of packages but with its lights still blazing bravely, on the day after Christmas. Within days the tree and the wreaths and the Santas and the creches disappear, packed away until the following year. When I was a child, many people only took down their Christmas decorations on January 6^th.

But shouldn’t Christmas be more? More than an extended shopping spree, more than a gift-fest, more than even a day of church services?

To me Christmas transcends its religious affiliations and sacred symbolism. It is a time of hope and love and family and peace. We’re losing that to a mountain of merchandizing and parties. Most religions have some sort of midwinter celebration, a time when the year turns and the days begin to lengthen, bringing back light and warmth and survival. The basic idea seems to be one of renewal, of a restart of the life cycle.

In earlier times there was a lengthy Christmas season. It started with the beginning of Advent around the first part of December and went on until Twelfth Night (sometimes called the Night of Three Kings) which by our calendar is January 6^th. When I lived in Mexico, they still kept this schedule. Christmas Day was a time of religious celebration and the exchanging of gifts was done on the 6^th of January, when traditionally the Three Wise Men brought gifts to the Christ Child. Incidentally, some of my Mexican friends are now caught between cultures with their children expecting bounty on both Christmas Day and the Night of Three Kings! The appeal of marketing wins again. 

So what am I dithering about? Basically it is this : Christmas should be a season of joy, of peace, of fellowship and goodwill – things people can and should enjoy whatever their religion. While gifts are important, they and their attendant marketing should not be the sole focus of the season. I would like to see the Christmas season – with its joy and peace and all that – be extended from the beginning of Advent to Twelfth Night. Not more presents, nor more parties, just more good feeling and fellowship. We can only benefit.