Yadda yadda yadda runaway commercialism yadda yadda hypocritical
religiosity yadda yadda Seasonal Affect Disorder. You've heard it all
before. Some of it even from me, as I've tweaked my cynicism high
enough from time to time to have it qualify as a pathology.
However.
The Holiday Season starts where it oughta, back around Thanksgiving
(in the USA, anyway--elsewhere as early as All Saints Day, or
thereabouts), when it's time to dump every bit of perishable food
that isn't going to survive until springtime on anything flat enough
to be called a table and invite all the neighbors. Christmas
coincides with the second feast of the season, when it's time to pass
around the news that the nights have officially gotten as long as
they're going to get and the sun is officially coming back. This
feast is usually the more hard-wearing stuff--the last of the citrus
(because scurvy sucks), nuts, fruitcakes, booze, jerky, and
seedcakes. Later on is the next feast, that's typically not much of a
feast, where you pass around the news that it's officially gotten as
cold as it's gonna get and it ought to be warming up again in a
trice. That's somewhere around Groundhog Day to Fat Tuesday. Mostly
booze at that point, because the stores are running low.... But
that's later. Save a few bottles.
The Christmas gift-giving tradition is all about hope, starting with
"there's a long cold winter coming up, and I hope we make it to the
other side of it." The little trinkets we give each other are packets
of hope, too. "I hope I get a cool present" or "I hope I get a
present at all" are the same hope on a smaller scale--one that's not
too grim to look in the face. As the winter settles in, it starts to
occur to some of us that we--as in, each other--are the only warmth
we've got to keep us alive until spring gets here....
Jesus and Santa are cool dudes and all, but this holiday isn't about
heaven or an electric train set to me. It's about making it to the
other end of a cold winter, both literally and metaphorically, along
with everyone else who makes the world worthwhile to live in. That's
all of you people, plus a few more that I'm positive will never see
this. Gifts and cards may seem a big investment in terms of money and
effort and tedium, but what they really say is, "Hey, it kinda
matters to me whether or not you make it through the winter."
I guess now is as good a time as any to tell a few more people who
will have absolutely no idea what they mean to me unless I find a way
to tell them.
All of you people in the Southern Hemisphere who are about to endure
roasting in a grueling summer can translate for themselves where
appropriate. And as for you bastards in the tropics where you don't
even have seasons--I'll be joining you as soon as I can.
[*]
posted by Laszlo Q. V. St-J. Xalieri
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