I love Christmas. Or, at least, I used to. When somebody mentions Christmas, I think about the holiday the way I remember it when I was young - back in the 80's and early 90's.
Christmas was great, and it wasn't all about the presents either (although that was definitely a big part). It was the entire atmosphere. The music has always stuck with me - not some boy band singing the hundredth cut of "Winter Wonderland", but good classic stuff, with Burl Ives or Bing Crosby singing out an old tune, or a nice choral version of Carol of the Bells. They came on the radio, of course, but we had some - a few old vinyl 33s. Even the religious songs were just fine - why is it that back then, we could sing "O Holy Night" without pondering whether we were going to spend eternity in heaven or hell? Then there were the decorations - people decorated their houses with all manner of lights, trees, plastic reindeer, and taped those dumb cardboard cutouts to the window. We used to go around a week before Christmas and look at how beautiful some of those houses were, all lit up and sparkling.
The movies were cool too, back then. Not just the kids movies (because hey, kids movies were kids movies), but the more grown-up ones, like Miracle on 34th street, or It's a Wonderful Life before they became cliche's. Remember the messages of those old movies, that spoke of the "spirit of Christmas"? It was about people, not gods. It was about here and now, not some past or future event. Giving and getting gifts, for and from people you knew and loved or cared about. Writing and sending out cards for the ones who couldn't be there, not because you thought you had to, but because it was just something you did.
That whole Santa Claus thing is great, too - it's a wonderful mythos. And the suggestion that it's a horrible thing to do to kids is nonsense; Christmas was never "less fun" for me after I learned the truth, I wasn't "traumatized". In fact, the year after I "learned the devastating truth", I joined a group of kids from school who went caroling that Christmas, and it was great. Sometimes I swear I grew up in the Golden Age of Christmas.
Christmas was also the first time I was made aware of the differences in world cultures. One year, way back in the single digits, one of the houses I saw was decorated with all blue lights (it reminded me of taxiway lights at an airport). I thought it looked exceedingly beautiful and the next day I asked the kid who lived there about it. Hannukah was explained to me then. I learned of these people who celebrated at the same time, who weren't Christian (I was technically a Christian, but our family didn't do church or anything like that). They didn't believe in the whole Jesus thing - but I didn't care. Hell, nobody cared. During Christmas, everything was all right.
But that's the way it used to be. In the 90's, people with squeezed budgets started complaining that Christmas was just a commercial gimmick, designed to suck more dollars out of them - they were right, then. They remembered the way Christmas used to be, but when they tried to find it again they noticed how expensive it had suddenly become in the here and now. So Christmas has steadily gone downhill as far as quality goes. Now, people string lights over the porch and call it quits...the only people who decorate "elaborately" now are the ones who turn their backyards into a miniature Las Vegas and give tours - for a buck. Those people make the papers.
In the late 90's and in the 21st century, the ultra-fundies have come around and noticed that Christmas really and truly has absolutely nothing to do with Christ. They've decided to change that at all cost. Nativity scenes have popped up in peoples' front yards and are becoming more populous every year. Some families spend less time at home (or a relative's home) in fellowship, and more time having "fellowship" at a church where they sit in complete silence and are read to like a class of first graders. People are taking over the radio and actually telling us that this whole "myth" of the Christmas spirit (being about people and loving people), is the devil's work. Christmas is becoming a way to proselytize to children, who are told that "It's Christ's birthday, Christmas trees are devil worship, and by the way if you don't believe in Jesus you're going to burn in hell forever". Christmas is one of those things that's being ruined by "revival".
But even so, my non-Christian status does not stop me from sending cards to those I can't be with, or buying an occasional present for aunts, uncles, and cousins. Our family still gathers - those of us that can, anyway - and we celebrate Christmas the real way. The most religious our evening ever gets is the before-dinner prayer, and I have no trouble lowering my head and letting it happen - I lose nothing. We're there, all together. And if that ever stops happening, then the only place left to go - the only thing that hasn't changed all that much - is that music. I still have that old, dusty vinyl. I'll probably keep it until the day I die.
