Need a little Christmas
The crackling sounds of Dean Martin's Silver Bells signals the start of another hauntological loop of Christmas. Five a.m. at the Seatac airport two days before Christmas and I take the caffeinated road more traveled after an hour of getting through security. An ever-growing queue of people form a bottleneck at the entrance to a row of empty self check-in kiosks. Bleary-eyed families side-step dog shit as frazzled airport employees scramble to place caution signs around the trail of poop while racing down the terminal to catch the dog owner. A cheerfully commanding Alaska Airlines employee who is ON this morning jumps in to direct the flow of traffic. I spend $34 on a breakfast burrito and a sandwich to go. The annual Christmas pilgrimage has begun.
Christmas has an unstoppable momentum like a carousel that, once activated, must complete its cycle. Come November 29th, tree-topped cars adorned with antlers and red noses jam the highway, everything from candy canes to Tostitos is dyed the colors of the Mexican flag, and Mariah's piercing notes beckon to us like a mythical monster from the deep that has lain all year in wait. You would do better to try and stop the earth from orbiting the sun than to stop the Christmas machine from completing its interminable course.
My dad quoted Joni Mitchell with a far-away look in his eyes one morning as he stared at the twinkling Christmas tree - you don't know what you've got til it's gone. While going through dozens of albums and folders he's compiled of our Christmases through the ages, he wondered aloud how our Christmas traditions would change as my mom's capacity to celebrate Christmas changes, completing the hauntological feeling pervading this year's Christmas: we were living in our memories of Christmases past while also being haunted by the specter of Christmases yet to come, like Scrooge in A Christmas Carol. It's not a bad thing, but it does get at some essence of Christmas that I've always felt but have never taken the time to articulate. Christmas has a compounded preciousness to it that makes it exceedingly precarious. Beyond that, it's also a bit of a repressed holiday in my opinion.
Behind the manic gaiety of Christmas carols and lights and feasting and ice skating and gingerbread house making there is a hidden melancholy to this holiday: the dark side of Christmas, as I like to call it. Like with Irish music, the words behind the cheerful notes are actually quite dark and dismal sometimes.
Christmas has an unstoppable momentum like a carousel that, once activated, must complete its cycle. Come November 29th, tree-topped cars adorned with antlers and red noses jam the highway, everything from candy canes to Tostitos is dyed the colors of the Mexican flag, and Mariah's piercing notes beckon to us like a mythical monster from the deep that has lain all year in wait. You would do better to try and stop the earth from orbiting the sun than to stop the Christmas machine from completing its interminable course.
Despite the goofy insanity of Christmas culture and the craziness of going through the airport during the busiest time of year, I look forward to Christmas back home. My mom is one of those people who starts planning for next year's Christmas before the current one is even over. We have long since dropped the pretense that I am the child during this holiday. She gets very excited for Christmas. The rest of us do our best to keep up.
I don't know about other families who celebrate Christmas but our traditions are very, very well-worn. They revolve around decorating, eating German treats, reading Christmas stories aloud to each other, listening to Christmas music, giving presents, watching certain Christmas movies even though we know every line by heart and there are a lot of other decent Christmas movies out there, listening to yet more Christmas music and visiting with friends. The somber question behind reenacting our traditions this year was "what would Christmas be without these traditions?"
My dad quoted Joni Mitchell with a far-away look in his eyes one morning as he stared at the twinkling Christmas tree - you don't know what you've got til it's gone. While going through dozens of albums and folders he's compiled of our Christmases through the ages, he wondered aloud how our Christmas traditions would change as my mom's capacity to celebrate Christmas changes, completing the hauntological feeling pervading this year's Christmas: we were living in our memories of Christmases past while also being haunted by the specter of Christmases yet to come, like Scrooge in A Christmas Carol. It's not a bad thing, but it does get at some essence of Christmas that I've always felt but have never taken the time to articulate. Christmas has a compounded preciousness to it that makes it exceedingly precarious. Beyond that, it's also a bit of a repressed holiday in my opinion.
Behind the manic gaiety of Christmas carols and lights and feasting and ice skating and gingerbread house making there is a hidden melancholy to this holiday: the dark side of Christmas, as I like to call it. Like with Irish music, the words behind the cheerful notes are actually quite dark and dismal sometimes.
Exhibit A:
"Haul out the holly
Put up the tree before my spirit falls again
For I've grown a little leaner, grown a little colder
Grown a little sadder, grown a little older
And I need a little angel sitting on my shoulder
Need a little Christmas now"
I know it's inevitable with any mile-marker - and especially one that facilitates rare family get-togethers for those of us who don't live near our families - for people to reflect on how things have changed over time. Although I've celebrated it in some form for many years, only last year have I begun to carve out a new winter tradition for myself: hosting a winter solstice dinner party with friends. My parents would prefer to spend more of the lead-up to Christmas with me, as celebrating the solstice in Washington means I arrive in Georgia only two days before the Big Day, but they tolerate it.
Over the visit, a friend told me of their friend's tradition of waking before everyone in their family got up to sit in front of the tree and cry privately before the onslaught of Christmas cheer, when they had to put on a cheerful face. "Make it tight and make it right." This brings me back to Mark Fisher's concept of hauntology, which I suppose is feeling temporally displaced by nostalgia for both the past and a lost future. While I'm a bit sad that things may not always be as they were as family members age and grow sicker, I don't feel bound by our traditions. There's plenty of room for change and I think it's infinitely worse to be stuck in one perfect picture of how x holiday/tradition should look. Or at least it infuses the holiday with a lot of stress often shown in all the Christmas movies. For instance, I appreciate that, after so many years of my mom cooking the holiday meals, I am now the one to cook them a nice homemade meal to eat on for days to come.
I was talking with another friend on Christmas Eve about how celebrating Christmas is culturally Christian, even if you aren't religious. The same way we have a protestant work ethic in this country, we perpetuate Christian values by celebrating Christmas. Though we may not be thinking of the blood of Christ when we see holly berries or protection and the eternal beauty of nature when we see green holly leaves or Coca-Cola when we see santa of the modern age dressed in his bright red suit, paganism, Christianity and capitalism - the Big Three spiritual progenitors of Christmas - are still alive and well in Christmas traditions, which I know a lot of people like to rebel against. I find Christmas nerdism kinda fun and like talking about the history of Christmas. In fact, I wish there was even more Christmas nerdism and kookiness to my celebrations of Christmas, but that's a work in progress. For now, I'll settle for getting my parents to watch any Christmas movie besides Love Actually.
So long as Christmas involves traveling during the busiest time of year and the manic capitalist frenzy of the holiday persists, it will always be associated with stress for me. Some things are worth the stress though, and I find my time visiting loved ones to be overwhelmingly beautiful and fulfilling. You can watch a million corny Christmas movies articulate some iteration of the sentiment that the true meaning of Christmas is love and giving. Traditions and ritual are important to us humans, so I won't poo poo them in this post; rather, I'll answer my question of what xmas would be without our time-honored traditions. It would still be a nationally recognized stop in the routine of our daily lives to spend time with friends and family and do silly things that make us laugh together. The zanier the better. Be merry, be gay, but also be sad if you want and let whatever feelings come up come up. Go for a walk in the woods and remember who you are outside of these people who you make an effort to be around. Christmas is a time for reconnection as well as reflection.
"Haul out the holly
Put up the tree before my spirit falls again
For I've grown a little leaner, grown a little colder
Grown a little sadder, grown a little older
And I need a little angel sitting on my shoulder
Need a little Christmas now"
I know it's inevitable with any mile-marker - and especially one that facilitates rare family get-togethers for those of us who don't live near our families - for people to reflect on how things have changed over time. Although I've celebrated it in some form for many years, only last year have I begun to carve out a new winter tradition for myself: hosting a winter solstice dinner party with friends. My parents would prefer to spend more of the lead-up to Christmas with me, as celebrating the solstice in Washington means I arrive in Georgia only two days before the Big Day, but they tolerate it.
One thing I appreciate about celebrating the solstice is that it makes space for the darkness of the season. Maybe I've leaned into it because it's a counter-balance to the tidal wave of Christmas cheer; its symbolism revolves around celebrating the darkest night of the year. I like to lean into that primal darkness, not with fear or even solely to contrast it with the wonderful return of the sun's light, but because I genuinely like the calm quiet reflection of winter. As someone who's easily over-stimulated, my mind finds rest and rejuvenation tromping through the brown stillness of the woods in the quickly dying light watching animals scurry around in survival mode. Without the emphasis on the sun's gradual return in the darkest time of the year, as I find in solstice traditions, all the light emanating from a million houses and outdoor displays seems to have a desperate edge. It's so much lead-up to one arbitrary day that, come December 26th (which is really only the beginning of winter) when they all seem to get packed away as abruptly as they came out, the feeling of their absence only emphasizes the haunted quality to the holiday. Maybe if we sat with the darkness a bit more, rather than turning away from it, we wouldn't feel the need to fight so hard against the melancholy at the heart of Christmas.
Over the visit, a friend told me of their friend's tradition of waking before everyone in their family got up to sit in front of the tree and cry privately before the onslaught of Christmas cheer, when they had to put on a cheerful face. "Make it tight and make it right." This brings me back to Mark Fisher's concept of hauntology, which I suppose is feeling temporally displaced by nostalgia for both the past and a lost future. While I'm a bit sad that things may not always be as they were as family members age and grow sicker, I don't feel bound by our traditions. There's plenty of room for change and I think it's infinitely worse to be stuck in one perfect picture of how x holiday/tradition should look. Or at least it infuses the holiday with a lot of stress often shown in all the Christmas movies. For instance, I appreciate that, after so many years of my mom cooking the holiday meals, I am now the one to cook them a nice homemade meal to eat on for days to come.
I was talking with another friend on Christmas Eve about how celebrating Christmas is culturally Christian, even if you aren't religious. The same way we have a protestant work ethic in this country, we perpetuate Christian values by celebrating Christmas. Though we may not be thinking of the blood of Christ when we see holly berries or protection and the eternal beauty of nature when we see green holly leaves or Coca-Cola when we see santa of the modern age dressed in his bright red suit, paganism, Christianity and capitalism - the Big Three spiritual progenitors of Christmas - are still alive and well in Christmas traditions, which I know a lot of people like to rebel against. I find Christmas nerdism kinda fun and like talking about the history of Christmas. In fact, I wish there was even more Christmas nerdism and kookiness to my celebrations of Christmas, but that's a work in progress. For now, I'll settle for getting my parents to watch any Christmas movie besides Love Actually.
So long as Christmas involves traveling during the busiest time of year and the manic capitalist frenzy of the holiday persists, it will always be associated with stress for me. Some things are worth the stress though, and I find my time visiting loved ones to be overwhelmingly beautiful and fulfilling. You can watch a million corny Christmas movies articulate some iteration of the sentiment that the true meaning of Christmas is love and giving. Traditions and ritual are important to us humans, so I won't poo poo them in this post; rather, I'll answer my question of what xmas would be without our time-honored traditions. It would still be a nationally recognized stop in the routine of our daily lives to spend time with friends and family and do silly things that make us laugh together. The zanier the better. Be merry, be gay, but also be sad if you want and let whatever feelings come up come up. Go for a walk in the woods and remember who you are outside of these people who you make an effort to be around. Christmas is a time for reconnection as well as reflection.
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