01jan07

Gee, only half a dozen days left for the 12 days of Christmas, so if I'm gonna post all the giftwrapping (leftover from 2005) I guess I'd better get going. The 2006 holiday posts, which will feature still incomplete stockings (mostly just tassels, bells and cords to attach) should, with luck, show up next year.

Provided, of course, I'm a little more organized:)

Some of the links I've been saving, such as how to make an evergreen wreath, or a post on creating a wreath out of one's old computer cables, have now been overtaken by events, not to mention the fact that I've long since lost the links, though I'd still like to try combining the ideas for the next holiday season. Certainly we have plenty of computer cables!

Having just returned from Meijers with the purchase of various plastic boxes to hold ornaments, lights and other seasonal stuff (on the theory they'll kick up the wizard's allergies less than the aging computer paper boxes I've been using) and assorted plastic cabinets, representing some $85 in expenditures (yes, to hold---sigh---recycled xmas paper and scavenged bows) this charming story resonated with me, for though we come from utterly opposite positions---I as a cheap athiest who can hardly stand to buy xmas stuff at post-holiday sales as opposed to an expansive minister's family who breaks out a fresh credit card, not for gifts, nor food, nor even for more dishes/bedding/chairs to accommodate an increasing crowd but merely for more doodads to display around the house---we meet, ultimately, at the same place: a holiday that is all about the spirit of giving, sometimes to seemingly foolish extremes.

I love the xmas holiday itself, if not the current name for it; it's my favorite, no doubt because I put more into it than other. Sure I could rotate red valentine hearts and green shamrocks and patrotic bunting and thanksgiving cornucopias, not to mention Halloween's black cats and orange jack-o-lanterns and purple bats throughout the house---but I haven't the energy or the time to do this more than once a year. Xmas is the time I set aside my normal life, and during the month of December, slip into other, traditionally homey crafts: sewing, baking, wrapping. And by the time I've sorted the latest crop of wrappings, packed up all the tree decorations, and consumed the last of the holiday chocolate, I feel ready to return to my normal life (and a good thing too, since it starts, oh the anticipation, with end of the year paperwork---hours and hours of it, in fact.)

I love collecting ornaments and finding special places on the tree to hang them, carefully placing heavy ones nearer the trunk on stronger branches. I enjoy the opportunity to write people the old fashioned way, calligraphing names and addresses; delight in decorating gifts, and truly enjoy the foods, most home-prepared, reserved for the season. I think it's great that people light up the neighborhood (though our own efforts range from nonexistant to lame) and enjoy observing the latest trends (electrically blue lights were big this year; considerably less appealing were the fan driven blow up thingies, though even those, if of suitably campy enough subjects, like spongebob squarepants or the grinch, weren't too bad).

Another athiest blogger suggested that Dickens' Christmas Carol should be the myth for all us non-Christians (and oh, the shock, when I discovered in my biblical studies class that the whole tale of Jesus' birth was indeed just that ---a tale, and indeed a lovely one, meant to relate him back to his heritage as the son of David [as I recall; it's been awhile]). The birth of a new baby sits reasonably well upon a celebration of lengthening days and a new year to come, marked even before the common era with fire and candles (that's what all those colored lights represent, yes?) feasting, gift-giving and evergreens; but to my mind, the perfect xmas myth, at least for Merkins, is Dr. Suess' How the Grinch Stole Christmas.

Unlike the Victorian era British setting of Dickens, Grinch comes out of our culture, with the additional appeal of having enough bite and not too much sappy sentiment besides having a film, as well as a book version, which seems only proper given the amount of television watching we supposedly do. And the story has a strong girl protagonist, since it's Cindy Lu Who that gets the Grinch to see the error of his ways*.

In any case, after the pleasures (and to be honest, the exhaustion) of Christmas, I can hardly be bothered to celebrate the New Year. It simply hasn't the resonance of generosity, of joy, of renewal, that the solstice holiday (now three days late, owing to messing about with the calendar) has for me. Perhaps if it included the Indian custom of asking forgiveness of all those you've wronged the previous year, I could get into it more. But kissing random strangers and getting drunk?

It's only the name of the celebration that bothers me, a little. I don't think even most christians go to mass anymore, since I was given to understand in the strongest possible terms that protestants go to service, led by ministers, not mass by priests. But so it is that our past, intertwined with christianity in general and catholicism in particular, has overlain the winter rituals with its particular history, the residual of which is the name, Christ's Mass. (I wonder how much people think about the fact that the last five days of the week are named for Norse and Roman deities; their history remains overlain in our everyday vocabulary as well.)

I suppose in a perfect world I suppose we'd have a more generic term---I rather like `winter solstice' myself---for a winter holiday I expect has been celebrated in some form or another ever since humankind figured out the solar cycles, but until we come up with one, I suppose `christmas' will remain the most common shorthand for most people, of whatever stripe. (So yes, even though I call my family get together xmas---because it's hard to break a habit two score and more years old, because the rest of the family are christian, ---I still expect store clerks to wish me happy holidays, because yes, the rest of us do in fact resent `merry xmas only' crowd greedily hoarding the winter holiday season to themselves. Season of sharing and all that, people?)

So...here's to hoping your winter (or summer, for those south of the equator) holidays were (or continue to be) joyous ones and wishing you a very happy new year.

Oh yeah, and here's the post to go with all that blathering!

*Ok, ok, let's update this a little: strictly speaking, it's the entire village of Whoville, who gather to sing, and celebrate, completely sans trappings, that ultimately turns our scrooge's heart 3 sizes bigger. But I'd argue the first cracks in the dam appear during Grinch's interaction with Cindy Lu; and as she's the most distinct whoville-ian (not whovillian!) I also say she kinda stands in for the rest of 'em.