The Real Meaning of Christmas… and No, I Don’t Mean Jesus

     They have Christmas stuff out at our local Wal Mart.  It’s the second week of November.  We haven’t even started to celebrate the all American holiday of Thanksgiving (the celebration of overeating and the Detroit Lions, if memory serves me correctly), and some of the local radio stations are playing holiday music already.  Being a small Midwestern river town of 20,000 or so, we of course have parks all along the river; they’re filling up with the usual assortment of nativity scenes, Santa Clauses, and Christmas trees, all of course covered by thousands of multi colored lights.  The street lights are now dressed up in garland strands and the prettiest little caricatures of presents, elves, and candy canes.  The commercial enterprise of Christmas has officially arrived.

     Over the next 6 weeks or so, we will be subjected to the 30+ Christmas specials that Television buries us with; Rudolph, Frosty, Jack Frost, and whatever the Peanuts Christmas episode is called.  We will hear Christmas Cannon from our holiday friends the Transiberian Orchestra just about every 10 minutes, and we will hum to ourselves about dreaming of a white Christmas, decking the halls, figi pudding (whatever the hell that is) and, up her in the great north of Wisconsin, Grandma getting run over by a reindeer.

     I apologize if I sound a bit scrooge-ish (and yes, we’ll see 5 versions of that); I actually love Christmas itself.  It’s one of the few times each year (along with birthdays) that I go a bit crazy and spoil my three children.  My two oldest, at 11 and 10, are young enough that Christmas is still fun, and maybe even catch a little bit of the magic; my 3 1/2 year old son is at the age where, God love him, This is still a time of enchantment and awe.  To be honest, I’m actually a bit of a sentimental fool for it all;  I take great delight in the traditions I have established with my family… Driving around looking at Christmas Lights, Stockings with the kids’ names on them, and of course decorating the overpriced spruce that will take over my den.

     So why am I so cynical?  Because, as is the case with anything, too much of a good thing eventually makes you sick to your stomach.  It’s like the aforementioned Christmas Cannon (click to listen); this version is, perhaps, one of the most beautiful pieces of music ever put together… It still, if I sit and listen to it while snuggling up with one of the kids, will have me tearing up a bit.  But come the last week of December, you get to the point where you just want the little bastards to shut up already.

     So, since I’m ranting here (nothing new about that, obviously) my point is this.  As we get started on the annual ride, try to remember, especially if you have kids, what this thing is really about.  I’m not talking about the whole religious aspect of it;  while that is a part of it for our family, it isn’t for everyone.  But this is the one time of year where magic is still possible.  Try, as I will, to see it as a three year old does.  This is a time of year when the people you love, if you’re lucky, all come together.  When, for a few weeks out of the year, we can all take time off from being assholes and think about others first.  When we at least go through the motions of caring about the benefit of those we don’t know.  And in spite of our selfish and cynical natures, manage to actually make the world a better place for a while.

     I’ve always thought it was a bit foolish that we only seem to do this this one time a year, but it is what it is.  So I will do as I do every year.  At the end of each Holiday soaked day, as I tuck my kids in, I will remember that they don’t really care about cynicism and commercialism.  For them, the lights are still pretty, Frosty is still cool, and Christmas morning is still magic.  And that makes it so for me.

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