Christmas is at our throats again.
Is what Noël Coward once said to highlight the suffocating, incessant imposition of joy and consumerism that marks so much of the holiday season. I've been meaning to use the statement as a spring board for my own exploration of the subject in an attempt to capture the same cool, snarky, counter-culture spirit but with less wit and in far too many words.
Truth be told however, I don't exactly feel like it. It's half past five as I write this and I'm all out of poison. Reflecting on the year that crowned the low dishonest decade, my mind goes not to the outrages of morality but to the moments spent with people who's company kept the candle burning. This makes it rather hard to be snarky about the tradition solely intended to bring people together. More to the point, I don't want to be cool anymore; not if it means being cold and distant.
In a 1970 cartoon special, Flintstone family is celebrating Christmas. What exact Christ in Christmas they were celebrating a million years before the presumed birth of a baby in question is besides the point; except to say that they didn't need him to celebrate in the first place. In this episode Fred has to step in and deliver gifts when real Santa Claus sprains an ankle; stating in the process that there is a little Christmas magic in all of us. The magic of Santa Claus mythos is that in his absence it falls to us to do what he would. To show those around us that we appreciate and care for them.
There's no hiding the truth, 2020 is going to suck and this holiday season is very much an epiphenomenon to an otherwise grim narratives weaving their way through a fabric of the present. But it is an important one. I am reminded that tradition is way of being with people, past and present. It is the antithesis to seductive lies of our times. That selfishness is not only necessary but desirable. That we were at one point great and that to be great again we need to exclude others. That there are others. Those who are unworthy of our time, or attention, or compassion. Whose shoulders must carry the blame for our misfortunes and whose suffering matters less than our own.
Word 'together' comes to us from the verb 'to gather', to unite. Dear reader, this holiday season I hope you can be together with people. Those who have been strong and weak for you. Those whose kindness you and I may not deserve but gratefully accept. Past and present.