Merry Christmas & All That

[redsage]

Time for a funny cat picture! It's not even my cat, but this amuses me greatly: http://twitpic.com/v6k12

Over the last few years, I have been trying to come to an understanding with Christmas. I have a lot of conflicting feelings about this holiday which I will explicate in great detail below.

On the one hand, I am not Christian: Christmas is not my religious holiday. I like the Christ myth, and yet I don't really feel like we've been saved from anything - for a good dose of this, check out the news of genocides and misery across the globe. I also don't personify God. I have a pretty well defined concept of the divine, and it is not anthropomorphic at all.

I also hate most popular Christmas music. My first job ever was working in a card and wrapping paper store over Christmas. This has given me a lifelong snobbery about cards and wrapping paper (I like elegant and colorful, usually do not like "funny" or cheesy), and such an overdose of popular Christmas music that it used to make me flee stores.

I've been listening to classical music radio in the car lately, and they've been playing some classical Christmas music (which is nice - this is the Christmas music I actually like since it's not an overdose of schlock). The lyrics are often very peculiar to me - a baby is born and now we are all saved from Satan, o let us adore him! What? Really?? Because I still see a whole lot of "Satan" (or at least, what I would define as evil and against divine love of creation).... Similarly, it's hard for me to think of this as "the most wonderful time of the year." I like parts of the Christmas season (see later in this post), and yet I still see Spring as more wonderful.

The other thing I genuinely find unpleasant about Christmas is that it makes January seem deeply depressing. I have called January "the long, dark Monday of the soul." After a festive holiday season, January feels like every awful grey "back to work" stereotype. There's nothing to look forward to until April (with the exception of PantheaCon & annual visit from witchchild), and it's hard not to get deeply depressed every year. Part of me wishes I could avoid celebrating entirely, because then January might be less of a lifeless hangover.

On the other hand, I've grown up celebrating a secular Christmas, and I love any excuse for twinkling lights at night, spiced warm drinks, singing songs, cooking extravagant food, and exchanging gifts with people I call family. I love wrapping paper, and wrapping presents with gorgeous layers of colorful paper and ribbon. I love Christmas candles (as a kid, I was utterly fascinated by the giant white pillar candle with embedded fake holly - how did they get that in there?!??). I love ornaments that provide a sense of family history.

When I was little, so many family members gave me ornaments that I had my very own (smaller) Christmas tree in my room as a kid. The first time I stayed up till midnight was by the light of one of those trees, and I remember loving the warm glow of the lights in my room to fall asleep to. My mother labeled all our ornaments with the names of who they were from and to, and what year. Some day, I will go through all of them and cry at my mother's handwriting and miss her, and remember things I had otherwise forgotten.

Favorite ornaments from my parents' tree: precious hand-blown glass icicles (like the ones here), glass-encased miniature scenes from the nativity (a shepherd and sheep, three wise men, Jesus in manger, etc.).

Every year growing up, our Mormon neighbors (as opposed to the other side, where we had Polish neighbors) would bring us a Christmas pastry that was sort of cinnamon bun but vastly vastly better (I don't like regular cinnamon buns). That was always breakfast on Christmas. Other memories: every year, my mother filled the bottom half of my father's stocking with malt balls. I don't know why, but I usually continue the tradition and get Dad malt balls every year.

The only real holiday food tradition we had is that every year, my beloved great Aunt Ruth would make divinity. I miss her. She was my favorite relative for a long time. My dad's father's sister lived a block away from my grandparents in South San Francisco. She had been married, and her husband had died before I was born. She kept house for several cats, cultivated beautiful roses, and did the best kind of volunteer work at her church. She pretty much kept their food pantry running. She was the best role model for attitude and health in old age, kind and spirited and driven. She made our Thanksgiving cranberry sauces (yes, plural!) and the Christmas divinity. I try to do the same to honor her.

I loved the Christmas tree. metaphorge is sadly allergic to real ones, but we have a small red fake one up (will post pictures later). We have a larger fake one in storage that we'll probably put up when we move somewhere with a little more room for it. As a kid, I remember hunting for the perfect real tree every year, and the day we took to light and decorate it.

I love giving people presents. I am fairly good at gift giving, and I love everything about the process. I delight in picking out the right present for someone, knowing their tastes and preferences well enough to come up with something just right. I love wrapping presents. It's a little harder when the pressure is on to get something by a specific date; I usually work better when I can spend as much time as needed to find just the right thing. Still, giving presents makes me really happy.

Much as it makes me sad that people aren't like this the rest of the year, the "holiday spirit" thing that a lot of people do is also really nice. People at the grocery store last night were smiling and joking with strangers. It was warm. This is what being a person is supposed to be about.

As metaphorge and I have combined our lives, we've been trying to find the traditions that work best for us both. As darkmoon has joined the Hivemind, we have been trying to work out the holiday stuff that she loves too. What are our most beloved traditions, and should we create new ones?

So... as an adult, I've been trying to find a place with Christmas that I'm comfortable with. I have too many happy memories to be one of those dour atheists who hates on everything holiday. I spent a couple of years as a teenager being too not-Christian for Christmas, and mostly that just felt too self-righteous and lonely and sad to keep doing. At the same time, I don't have much of a personal relationship to Christianity (either way - we went to church a few times growing up, but mostly Christianity has felt orthogonal to my life) to really feel like I'm celebrating the birth of religious figure who means a lot to me. It feels very strange and a little inauthentic to celebrate a religious holiday for not-my-religion, and yet it's associated with so many good family memories that I don't want to let it go. Calling it a solstice celebration (and a "solstice tree") doesn't feel like a good workaround for me, either.

At any rate, I am probably overthinking this. I do that.

Merry Christmas to all of you, those who celebrate and those who don't. My Christmas wish is that those I love get the best this holiday season has to offer. May your day (and life!) be blessed with wonderful food, delicious people, and a feeling of magic.

What about you, friends? Do you celebrate Christmas? Why or why not? And for those who don't, how do you feel about those who do? Is Christmas a totally weird tradition for those of you who grew up Jewish or otherwise not Christmas-celebrating? How do you reconcile your current religious beliefs with family celebrations and popular culture?

Comments

[dcart.livejournal.com]

I have very similar feelings about Christmas. I am an atheist, but one who usually fully embraces a secular celebration of Christmas. I like the tree. I like the lights. If lights generally stuck around through early February, I think it would take some of the hangover effect of January away. I like giving gifts and many other things about the season. I'd say the main difference between us on this is that I generally love Christmas music from the 30s to the early 60s and some of it since then.

[witchchild]

First, I already had a wonderful day and awesome gifts, but that one line made it all the better. :)

Second, I do celebrate a secular Christmas. This year I am feeling the spirit a lot, probably because I've really done things to help people who needed it. The night of the 24th mom cooks for a bunch of people (almost all family friends, this year including my closest local friend), full Swedish Jul feast. It's a real treat. Today's schedule was the usual of seeing some of my cousins and their family (who I'm only connected to by marriage) then friends who are part of the 24th feasting serve a British style dinner.

The best part of the holidays now is having time off from work for a week and a half. It's always much needed and appreciated by the time it comes.

[tyrsalvia.livejournal.com]

What is included in a full Swedish Jul feast?

[witchchild]

Massive amounts of pork: ham and assorted sausages. Herring. Cheese. Leverpastej (pate) if you taste goes that way. Red cabbage. Cucumbers. Mashed potatoes. Mashed turnips. Dark bread. Peppakaker. Almond tarts. One thing my mother does not make, since no one but her will eat it, is lutefisk.

[tyrsalvia.livejournal.com]

How similar is lutefisk to gefiltefish?

[witchchild]

Unfortunately I am not familiar enough with either to know.
and checking wikipedia, I think the biggest difference is that lutefisk is made into such by using lye.

[tyrsalvia.livejournal.com]

Admittedly, I look more forward to your annual visit than I do to PantheaCon. Mixed emotions on the Con - some good, some bad every year, while you are all fun.

[witchchild]

why thank you. :) I admit I prefer all the social activity of Pcon, and your company is definitely a big perk.

[uncacreamy.livejournal.com]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fCNvZqpa-7Q

[pvck.livejournal.com]

Well said, quite a few good points herein.

Millennium Hand and Shrimp!

[sandrak.livejournal.com]

I was raised atheist Jew and we always celebrated Christmas with tree and presents.

In the last 4 or 5 years I've come to really dislike Christmas. As my nieces got older they would get so many presents that it was exhausting just to watch, and anathema to my ecological tendencies. Their almost lascivious greed and squeals of exagerated excitement seemed to get worse every year. Much of the stuff I'd receive was stuff I had no use for-I'm always trying to simplify my life, and less things often seem better. In addition, I find the family expectations of on-demand gift giving to be obnoxious-I much prefer to give gifts when I'm inspired to, rather than expected to. And there is not doubt that I'm expected to have gifts for everyone come xmas morning.

Last year I escaped all the xmas hubbub by deliberately scheduling the trip back east with Chris to cover xmas day. Nobody really expected us to carry presents (tho we brought a few), and Chris has seemingly cultivated a no-present exchange expectation with his family that I greatly appreciate.

This year I didn't see any easy way to plead out. Fortunately, my nieces have matured a bit and are less obnoxious, and it all went smoothly. I think the high point for me was getting Settlers of Catan! And not getting any useless stuff...

[michiexile]

Nothing alike at all.

Gefilte fisch - as far as I've been able to divine so far - are stuffed, pickled fish fillets.

Lutfisk is dried, lyed, washed and boiled cod, served with a white pepper bechamel sauce and potatoes. No pickled taste left.

And since I'm the only one (maybe my brother too) who'll eat lutfisk, we generally lose that battle for Jul. :-)

[michiexile]

What?! No Köttbullar!? How can you have christmas without the meatballs!?

Also: salmon, potato and anchovy gratin (Janssons Frestelse), green cabbage soup with a boiled egg in it, green cabbage pie, stale bread soaked in the juices of the christmas ham (this is where one of the euphemisms for christmas: Dopparedagen originates), rice pudding (which belongs eaten ALL THROUGH the holiday - breakfast! evening snack! dessert! ALWAYS!).

Just to mention what I remember of our family traditions....

[michiexile]

Oh! I forgot! The drinks!

Glögg (mulled wine)
Julmust (a kind of malty sweet beverage - like a thick-headed beer without the fermentation)
Holiday brew beers

[michiexile]

As you might have spotted above, I celebrate a secular, Swedish Jul every year. In Sweden, even - it's one of the footholds on Home that my wife insists on: we go back to Stockholm over Jul, so we can celebrate it with family.

And celebrate with family we do:
23rd - my parents, brother+1, aunt, cousin, gramma. 'American' x-mas food (Turkey etc. - almost like it's thanksgiving) and gift giving.
24th - her parents, brother (+1), paternal grandparents, uncle, cousins. Swedish Jul-food, Donald Duck and gift giving.
25th - used to be we went to Västerås for her maternal grandparents, uncles, cousins et.c., another traditional Jul-food serving - with its own peculiar traditions - and gift giving. This got moved, this year, to the 21st and then cancelled due to a sudden hospital visit. Instead we spent 25th playing Dominion (squeeeee! xmas gift!) with my parents, brother+1 and cousin before they left for their skiing vacation.

It has always, always, always been very secular for us. I'm well aware of the 'Christ' backstory - and sure, it's omnipresent in the lyrics of christmas carols - but somehow that bothers me less around christmas time. Instead, Jul is about family, friends, gifts, and togetherness. And gorging ourselves on WAY too much food. And the more time I spend as an expat, the more important the winter holidays (x-mas + new year's) get as a reference point for everything.

[witchchild]

I'm a horrible Swede for forgetting the köttbullar, and definitely consumed a high amount of glögg Thursday night. Since I don't drink soda anymore, julmust is almost off my radar. But maybe I will have one today, hm...

[michiexile]

If ever you get the chance - soda or no soda - DO drink the Julmust produced by Zeunerts. It is a very different experience from usual Julmust: much less sweet, much more malty, hoppy. Incredibly delicious.

[witchchild]

oh, and leftover bonanza has begun--my breakfast is hard boiled eggs, sill, and vort limpa. Then there's the egg in cream sauce with ham (my Swedish is not good enough to spell out the name) and the hash with ham. And need to get some beets to go on the side of that hash.

[alfrecht.livejournal.com]

I know what you're saying here...

I have a whole box of christmas ornaments in storage, which I have not opened for years...My grandmother gave each of us a handmade ornament each year (if she didn't make it herself, she bought ones that were handmade), so that when each of us moved out, we'd have enough ornaments for our own trees when we did. I also had some of the Star Trek ornaments from Hallmark (_{like the shuttlecraft Galileo with Leonard Nimoy's voice saying "Shuttlecraft to Enterprise, Shuttlecraft to Enterprise; Spock here; Happy Holidays; Live Long and Prosper"}), and a few other odds and ends I got over the years. I'd love to have something to do with them...but, I'm never getting rid of them, that's for sure.

My whole family (including my now-practicing-Jewish older brother) celebrates Christmas, and somewhat insists that I do, too--no matter how much I tell them it's not my holiday, and they don't have to get me anything (and I certainly don't get them anything...I rarely have the money to do so anyway), they still do certain things to work around this.

One thing is for sure: there's nothing holy or magical about this night, any more than any other one--such holidays are what people make of them, and it's unfortunate that the cake-icing Christianity of the overculture is set up such that without Xmas every year, the economy of most places (including occult shops, etc.) would collapse, since overconsumerism is the only thing that everyone can count on at this time of year.

Anyway...I have more to say, but I'll save it for the moment. It's certainly been on my mind a lot lately, that's for sure...And considering I'm writing this at 5 AM from my mom's house, where the Xmas extravaganza occurred yesterday, I'm swimming in the implications, as it were...

[witchchild]

You wouldn't happen to know if it gets exported do you? The brand in house this year is Grandpa Lundqvist and may well be an America-specific blend.

[michiexile]

Alas, I would suspect not - this is the kind of brand where news travels around Stockholm when it appears in shops here: it's a small brewery in Norrland, and they don't distribute all that much even within Sweden.

[michiexile]

Egg in cream sauce with ham? I must admit I have NO idea what you mean.

[witchchild]

got the spelling. ägg i skinsk sös.

[michiexile]

Okay. Ägg i skinksås. Says about as much as the original description - I still lack a mental image. ;-)

[witchchild]

yes, I am still not awake enough. You boil up eggs, slice them in wedges, make a bechamel and put chopped ham or bacon in it and serve over the eggs.

[michiexile]

OIC. Sounds good. Don't think I've ever had that.

[witchchild]

it is. and good way to use up all the extra ham.

[tyrsalvia.livejournal.com]

...clearly I should introduce you two when witchchild comes to visit in February.

[michiexile]

Sounds like fun! I should be around.

conversion to solstice...

[(Anonymous)]

I grew up celebrating secular Xmas, and loved all the traditions and foods and lights and all. When I was much older I learned about how people used to celebrate the solstice, and the idea of it resonated with me. Then I dug into how they celebrated it: decorated tree, lights, presents, red and green, spiced wines and punches and egg nogs, family gatherings, winter comfort foods. I realized we had really been celebrating the solstice all along, just that the Christians had renamed it somewhere way back when. My wife and I don't buy presents for anyone, nor do we expect any for us. In the past we have actively worked on making xmas better for less fortunate families (I still do at work, she won't again until her dissertation is done) I look forward to returning to doing that, hopefully next year.

So anyway, that's my take on the whole thing...it just has the wrong name :-)

-CTP

[bearfairie.livejournal.com]

Thank you for posting your thoughts about this! I can see how this time of year is such a deeply held contradiction for you. Holidays are complex like that. I loved your description of christmas growing up. Having been raised Jewish in a very pan-immigrant community, it's really different for me. My early memories - christmas was the holiday that made me really aware as a kid how different my family background was from what felt like most of the rest of the country's background. I remember feeling a bit left out, and having fluctuating bouts of longing and militant snubbing of the holiday. But I also remember my Italian immigrant neighbors would make this special christmas sausage bread every year (I'm forgetting what it's called) and would make a batch for us. I remember just loving the lights and decorations - every year we'd go back to Brooklyn (where I was born & my dad grew up) b/c there was a funeral home that would put up the most incredible decoration - huge displays, creepy animatronic reindeer, the works. I remember as a kid being in such a mixed neighborhood, there was room for everyone's differing beliefs.

As an adult, and living in a far less integrated community (I'm sorry, the bay area likes to pretend that we're all open and diverse and welcoming and it's total bullshit - there's lots of different types of folks out here, and they all in general keep to themselves far more than folks did where I grew up), Christmas over the past 10-15 yrs I find tedious and annoying. This is generally the time of year when I have to deal with the most blatant anti-semitism, honestly. Particularly living in Santa Clara and working in a largely catholic clinic. B/c most folks want to yell "merry christmas" at everyone they see, and want to know what I'm doing to celebrate christmas this year (and often assume I'm going to church, and want to know which one), and get fussy and sometimes even hostile if I tell them I don't celebrate christmas on account of, well, not being christian and stuff.

So there's probably more than you wanted to know, but... :)

happy winter holidays to you.

[bearfairie.livejournal.com]

:) lutefisk and gefilte fish are pretty different. Gefilte fish is basically ovoid fish meatballs made with ground up white fish of some sort (whitefish, carp, turbot, or the like), matzoh meal, carrot, onion, sugar and salt, served in a disgusting gelatinous sauce made from boiling the fishbones, heads and tails. It's this disturbing brain-like pink color and the clear mucousy looking sauce makes it look like basically someone sneezed their brains onto a plate. *shudder*

ludafisk is another nasty fish dish, this one preserved with lye.

So basically, both Eastern European Jewish and Scandinavian cultures both do disturbing things with fish, but we do things slightly differently.

[zare-k.livejournal.com]

I celebrate Christmas, at this point mostly because my parents do and I think it would upset them if I abandoned that tradition. I don't know how much of that I would preserve if I were left to my own devices. I did get our house a tiny little Christmas tree this year (actually a rosemary plant in the appropriate shape). When my brother and I were kids my dad would take us up to Skyline to pick out a tree. I always enjoyed that and enjoyed decorating the tree. Now that my mom's health is so poor I have taken over cooking most of Christmas dinner. I was raised Christian so Christmas was a religious event when I was growing up, but I've been a firm agnostic for many years now so that part is no longer meaningful for me.

I love traditional Christmas music.

I've been kind of "bah humbug" about the whole thing for the past couple of years. Part of the problem is simply that I have to work through every day except Christmas itself (the holiday season is our busiest time) so it becomes just one more thing I have to rush around and do. I also think the Christmas spirit is a great idea in theory but in practice often find it to be in short supply (God, I /hate/ Christmas shoppers).

[tyrsalvia.livejournal.com]

I grew up in Palo Alto. The first time I heard of modern anti-Semitism, I remember being really confused. It seems like such an archaic prejudice. But sadly no, it is very alive and well. :/

I can see where Christmas would feel weird if you grew up in this country as a Jewish person. SO much is about Christmas - all the television shows and all the ads, radio songs and commercials, store displays, etc.

I know Hanukkah (sp?) was originally kind of a minor holiday that has gotten somewhat more important over the years as Jewish families didn't want their kids to feel left out from Christmas. At least, this is what a Jewish ex of mine told me. Does this hold true for your family? Do you celebrate any winter holiday, and do you have any cherished traditions for it?

Do you give Christmas gifts to anyone? (Say, do people at your office give each other small presents, and do you take part in stuff like that?)

[cwwriter.livejournal.com]

I'm not Christian either, but since I celebrate things like Christmas I consider myself a "cultural Christian" just like friends of mine consider themselves "cultural Jews" because they identify with their heritage but aren't observant.