Christmas Presence
Andy Hogg
11/27/11
You better watch out
You better not cry
Better not pout
I’m telling you why
Santa Claus is coming to town
It’s the day after Halloween, and all through the house, everyone is
stirring – even the computer mouse.
The Christmas ads have started on prime time TV, and they’re aimed
at our children, our society, and me.
The stockings were hung by the chimney with care, hoping that gift
cards to Best Buy will be placed there.
The inflatable Santa needs to go on the roof, so anyone doubting your
Christmas spirit will have tangible proof.
All your friends will know that this is your favorite season, even
though everyone seems to forget the real reason.
When you go to the mall you will hear every Christmas song,
reminding you that the season just may be too long.
In recent years, the Christmas season begins before the kids have even
finished eating their Halloween candy. If the trend continues, the Christmas
season will start right after the Fourth of July. We will put away the
sparklers and break out the tinsel.
Christmas originally began to celebrate the birth of Jesus. Of course,
historians and astronomers determined that the birth date of the actual person
Jesus was between March and July of 6 B. C. In other words, Jesus was
actually born six years before the calendar recognizes the birth of Christ.
The December date was chosen because it coincided with the pagan holiday
of the Winter Solstice. It was easier to co-opt the pagans than to convert
them.
If Jesus were alive today, he would probably have a lot to say about how his
name has been used by others to justify virtually anything. The Children’s
Crusade to take back the Holy Land and the Spanish Inquisition quickly
come to mind. He may still have some bad feelings about the whole
crucifixion thing too. Like most spiritual leaders, he didn’t get treated too
well during his time. I doubt that he would get too excited that there are only
28 shopping days left until his birthday.
At some point, Christmas got fused with the story of St. Nicholas giving
presents to the children. From a sociological perspective, St. Nick helped
Christmas become more European White and not so Mediterranean and
Jewish. In the paintings of Jesus, he gradually stopped looking Jewish and
began to look more and more English or Scandinavian. Growing up in
Minnesota, I knew that Jesus had blond hair. Jesus and St. Nick could have
been brothers, hanging out with their rosy-cheeked elf friends. Pretty soon,
St. Nick got a sleigh, reindeer, and a GPS system to speed up his global
delivery system. “May all your Christmas’s be white” isn’t just about snow.
No one liked the idea of St. Nick – Santa Claus – more than retailers. They
all know that the longer you celebrate the season of giving the more stuff
that people will buy. They can get rid of the junk that is too useless for
people to purchase during the rest of the year. Combining religion and
capitalism was a success for almost everybody, except the planet Earth,
which was expected to provide the endless bounty to sustain the global
economy.
The entertainment industry could see lots of profit in Christmas too. All of
us have cried through “It’s a Wonderful Life” many times, with its deep
message about gratitude for our lives. Almost every major performer has had
at least one Christmas song. Last night I added the Sirius XM Holiday
channel to my Favorites list on our TV. I choke up whenever I hear “Little
Drummer Boy” for the one hundredth time. Last weekend, I bought one
hundred dollars worth of LED Christmas lights and plastic rain gutter clips
so that our house will have blue lights this season.
The real challenge with Christmas isn’t the incongruities; it is the frenzy.
Each year the expectations increase.
Now parents are expected to buy the coolest toy, at any price, for each of
their children, and then at least half a dozen lesser gifts. The implication is
that you don’t really love your children if you don’t shower them with
Christmas presents. So parents pull out the credit cards to make it through
the holidays. Retailers know that if you start the holidays in November, guilt
about not giving your kids enough will push parents to buy even more gifts
that they can’t really afford. The children salivate at the sight of large boxes
with bows under the Christmas tree, and then they ignore half of their new
gifts by February.
The airline companies count on everyone being home for the holidays, at
$500 a round trip ticket. Christmas dinner is supposed to be a feast for the
entire extended family. When did Christmas become so much work?
Too many people get stressed out by the holidays. It becomes almost two
months of high expectations, financial pressures, and boring office parties. It
is too easy to be swept up by the commercialism and unrealistic expectations
of the holiday.
So what is real about Christmas? How do we actually enjoy the holiday
season?
First, many UUs were raised with strong Christian backgrounds. Our roots,
which we often deny, are within the Christian tradition. I was born and
raised a Methodist, which is Protestant Light. As a UU, it is perfectly alright
to celebrate some of that tradition without buying into all of it. We can
celebrate any of the religious traditions that we choose.
For me, my favorite part of Christianity is thinking of Jesus as the Prince of
Peace. On Christmas day, troops all around the world put down their
weapons and have a twenty-four hour ceasefire. If they can do that for one
day a year, maybe we can find a way to do that every day of every year. At
its best, the messages of Christianity are love, forgiveness, and peace.
Second, it is possible to set reasonable expectations about our families. If
they are weird during the rest of the year, then they will probably be just as
weird during the holidays. In our extended family this Thanksgiving, my
wife’s uncle and his wife arrived separately for the Thanksgiving dinner
because they weren’t talking to each other. Having your family and in-laws
arrive for a few days reminds us of why we moved to Arizona in the first
place. Don’t put out the alcohol on Christmas Eve morning unless you are
prepared to have Uncle Harold get out of control by Christmas Eve night.
Don’t expect that you will heal all the family wounds during your three or
four days together one time a year. For the holidays, just accept your family
and your in-laws for whoever they are.
Third, Christmas is the ideal time of the year for any UU to practice
mindfulness. The essence of Buddhist mindfulness is being in the present
without expectations and illusions. It is being in the moment, whatever that
moment is. During the holidays, it is really easy to let our minds be
somewhere else expecting it to be something else. We think that our family
and in-laws will be better behaved and more likeable, that our children will
be deeply grateful for all our sacrifices, and that it will snow on Christmas
morning.
Finally, Christmas is all about children and grandchildren. When I become a
grandparent, nobody is going to tell me that I can’t lavish gifts on my
grandchild. When my daughter, Lara, was younger, it was worth all of it to
watch her eyes get wide on Christmas morning. Those memories are worth
their weight in gold.
This Christmas, we can try to minimize all those expectations and accept
Christmas for what it is. It is an opportunity to be generous, to delight our
children, and to build wonderful memories. Try your best to be really
present for it. That is the message of Christmas presence.