Sunday, December 17, 2006

Another reason to take xmas out of public space

I think xmas would be far better if it weren't public. This thought is triggered by this article, which points out that media/pulp culture tends to present The Magic of Christmas Solving Everyone's Problems.

With media/culture/marketing/commercial xmas saturation tends to present xmas as this Big Important Thing with huge cultural significance. Which maybe it is, a lot of people celebrate it. But just imagine for a moment what it would be like if the majority of society didn't celebrate xmas at all, and it was just some obscure little tradition in your religion and/or your family.

Wouldn't that be cool? Once a year, in the depths of winter, your little sect gets together at midnight to celebrate the birth of its messiah. Once a year, on the basis of some archaic tradition from the Old Country, your family gets together under one roof for food and catching up, and maybe to exchange presents. You decorate your home with lights and plants and all kinds of bizarre things like that, and sing special songs. But it's just your thing, an esoteric little quirk peculiar to your family or your religion. Only the people who share your cultural background have lights in their windows and trees in their living rooms and carols on their CD player. Everyone else is going about life normally. Wouldn't that be awesome?

As I blogged before, I reached xmas saturation last week. And that was before anything meaningful had even happened! I'm not religious myself, but it's still a sort of family tradition. I get to see all my cousins (who become increasingly fascinating by the year), I get to eat special food that people simply don't make at other times in the year - if this were happening in a vacuum, it would be charming and enjoyable. But I've been bombarded by decorations and carols and greeting cards from people I do business with for a month already, so once I see my parents' decorations and carols and receive my grandmothers' greeting cards, I'm just meh. The meaningless public fracas saturates me before the meaningful private celebration can even begin. If there were no xmas in public space, I would be giddily rejoicing in my parents' lights and carols, maybe even decorating my own home. But as it stands, all the lights and carols in public just leave me wanting a respite.

No comments: