Let me explain why I don't have a Christmas tree.
To make myself appear noble, I'll start with an epiphany I had in Korea - although if we're going to be honest, this doesn't really factor as much in my reasoning as a couple of later experiences I'll get to after, but it crossed my mind so I'll mention it. I went to Korea as an English and Bible teacher. As such, it was my job to teach the new, Christian Koreans that their ancestorial rituals, even if they don't believe in them any more, were wrong if they wanted to be Christian, because they were originally steeped in "pagan" culture. Then one day, it hit me: What's the difference between them following traditions just for fun and not because they believe in them, and us doing the same (case in point: the Christmas tree, which actually has pagan roots if you research it), except for the fact that we think it's okay for us because it's us, and it's not okay for them because it's them and their culture is foreign to us so it MUST be wrong. Anyways, it wasn't a life altering realization, but it did flit across my mind - the hypocracy of it.
But the real turning point(s):
My first year in my flat, Christmas 1999, despite my aforementioned reservations I bought myself a wonky little tree. Growing up, we always had wonky little trees, so it only seemed appropriate. I picked it up in front of IGA, paid the $11.95, dragged it home (around the corner) and set it up. For years, I'd had this dream of having a tree covered in nothing but little white lights. Simplicity. So I did it. It was lovely. I was happy. It was right. Until my mum came round with her friend and said my tree was crap and hauled out their own decorations and went to town decorating MY little tree with all sorts of ball-balls and tinsel and toys. Pretty ball-balls, tinsel and toys, but still. I protested. They ignored. Then they went home and I was stuck with a dead tree in my house that I didn't really want in the first place and especially didn't want afterward because it wasn't even me.
Never again, I declared.
Fast forward to Christmas 2000. A rotten Christmas all around, but I'll save the really sordid bits for later. In addition to my no-tree vow, I was totally turned off of decorating when I started seeing decorations everywhere in October. By mid-November I was sick to death at the sight and sound of, really, just so much cheap trash. I mean, not even the pretty stuff - just noisy, gaudy, tasteless junk. Everywhere.
I already knew I didn't want to be a part of it. The commercialism. Materialism. Many, many -isms. Until. I remember driving past a little shop on Vernon's Main Street, lit up with little white lights and this simple, pure sort of holiday style. It was so inviting, I wanted to go in and have a cup of eggnog, but it was after hours and, I think, a sewing shop or something and they probably didn't have any eggnog (or at least none they'd want to share). But that's the look I wanted, and so I decided to decorate.
So, I got the tree - my mum's, a fake - and took out the box of decorations I had. Then, I organized them (read: strew them out across the floor) and realized I didn't have quite the same ingredients. But whatever. The real problem came when I couldn't attach the fake branches to the fake tree, so I what I had, assembled in the middle of my room for the entire two weeks leading up to Christmas, was this odd, green, fluffy stick (the trunk) sprouting from a stand and crowned with a full cylander/cone/triangle/whatever of fake foliage at the top, where the branches were already attached because it was the very top bit. Are you getting the appropriate picture here?
Stumped about what to do next, I looked around at the great, walloping mess I had made, decided decorating isn't all it's cracked up to be and went upstairs where I wouldn't have to look at it anymore. Mess remained until Christmas Day itself, when I figured I should clear it out and make my house presentable for coming guests (immediate family). First to go: Yeah, um, the not-Christmas tree, of course. Let's just say that, if there's anything worse than having a dead tree in your house, decorated wrongly and against your will, it's having a metal rod with green fuzz wrapped around it, shooting up phallically in the centre of your room and surrounded by the carnage of fake branches that refuse to be attached. Nothing like a little of that to drive the absurdity home.
I still decorated, after throwing the remnants of said fake tree into a garbage bag (actually, two). I set the flashing lights up on my veranda, stuck a green garland boa and lights around the door, and draped more white lights across the window sills in my kitchen and living room. It was a winter thing. No tree, but lots of spirit. Or at least I thought so, and I'm the one that matters since I have to live with it.
The next year, when I anounced my defiant intention to NOT having a Christmas tree (again), Avery was concerned. "Where will you put the presents, Aunty," she asked. "Well, luv, what did I do last year?" She couldn't remember not having a tree - - which proved my point even further.
Will I never have another Christmas tree in my life? I'm not going to say, "no, I will never let one of those things into my house." But I haven't had one since, and I haven't missed it yet. The presents look just as good piled on and around a table. And you don't have to vacuum up the needles that keep falling because the tree is, well, dead. And, no, I don't judge others for their love of Christmas trees. To each there own. I just prefer mine in the great out doors, where, let's face it, they really belong.
Thursday, December 16, 2004
Tuesday, December 07, 2004
further to the point
So I'm in the mall, my favouritest place (not!), hanging out near the Santa crèche. The queue is surprisingly small for some reason, but there's lots, I discover, going on.
At the front is a tousle-haired blond girl, about three years of age, who is apparently against Santa Claus visits. She isn't afraid, she isn't upset. She just doesn't give a hoot for Mr. Claus or his stale candy canes - much to her parents chagrin.
They coax, to no avail. They plead, they bargain, they threaten, but there is no convincing tousle-haired child that visiting with Santa has any sort of appeal. Finally, they let, so generously, someone else take a turn. But it isn't over yet (ha ha, quoth he).
Minutes after taking their reluctant exit, the family reappears with, it seems, renewed vengeance. The parents ask tousle-haired child if she's ready to sit on Santa's knee yet. To make herself clear on how NOT ready she is, tousle-haired child sticks her tongue out at the fat, jolly man for emphasis.
"He knows if you've been bad or good," the mother warned. Tousle-haired child looks unconcerned. "So do you want to see him?"
Negative.
"Fine," says Mother. "That was your last chance. We're going to see him now."
Child puts up a fight, so parents agree to go.
Thirty seconds later, who do we see coming around the corner again but the happy family, and it becomes clear to me that they've merely circumnavigated the Santa crèche, perhaps in an attempt to make the child forget the bearded man.
"Now do you want to see Santa Claus?"Daddy patiently asks.
"No."
So they stand around uneasily for a moment. "What about now?" he persists.
"No."
Funny how it's obvious only to me that this child has no intention of sitting on Santa's knee.
Family disappears again, and I watch the other children visiting with Claus. It really doesn't get any better.
Two boys, brothers, are sitting on Santa's knee to get their pictures taken. One looks about seven, the other one five. The lady photographer (a blond) has taken more than a dozen shots of the two, in order to get "the perfect one." This could take all night.
"Smile!" she demands. They are smiling. "Say 'macaroni and cheese,'" she recommends. They do, but it's still not enough.
"You're not smiling enough," she tells the little one. If he smiled any broader he'd be grotesque.
"Everyone tickle him."
They do, but still - apparently - not to the satisfaction of our perfectionist picture girl.
Family returns.
"Are you ready to see Santa yet?" Mother asks, undeterred by her child's insistence to the contrary. I have come to the conclusion that their cunning plan is to lead the tousle-haired child in circles until she relents from sheer exhaustion, dizziness or deliria. To sit on Santa's knee will be her only reprieve from this circlish hell. They do not relent.
Having had my fill, I decide to leave. But as I do, I hear the parents give their stubborn child "one last chance" before discussing Plan B.
"Maybe we should just go," the mother says, sounding a touch resigned.
"Yeah," the father agrees. "We'll come back after we do some shopping."
And you know what, I believe they just might.
At the front is a tousle-haired blond girl, about three years of age, who is apparently against Santa Claus visits. She isn't afraid, she isn't upset. She just doesn't give a hoot for Mr. Claus or his stale candy canes - much to her parents chagrin.
They coax, to no avail. They plead, they bargain, they threaten, but there is no convincing tousle-haired child that visiting with Santa has any sort of appeal. Finally, they let, so generously, someone else take a turn. But it isn't over yet (ha ha, quoth he).
Minutes after taking their reluctant exit, the family reappears with, it seems, renewed vengeance. The parents ask tousle-haired child if she's ready to sit on Santa's knee yet. To make herself clear on how NOT ready she is, tousle-haired child sticks her tongue out at the fat, jolly man for emphasis.
"He knows if you've been bad or good," the mother warned. Tousle-haired child looks unconcerned. "So do you want to see him?"
Negative.
"Fine," says Mother. "That was your last chance. We're going to see him now."
Child puts up a fight, so parents agree to go.
Thirty seconds later, who do we see coming around the corner again but the happy family, and it becomes clear to me that they've merely circumnavigated the Santa crèche, perhaps in an attempt to make the child forget the bearded man.
"Now do you want to see Santa Claus?"Daddy patiently asks.
"No."
So they stand around uneasily for a moment. "What about now?" he persists.
"No."
Funny how it's obvious only to me that this child has no intention of sitting on Santa's knee.
Family disappears again, and I watch the other children visiting with Claus. It really doesn't get any better.
Two boys, brothers, are sitting on Santa's knee to get their pictures taken. One looks about seven, the other one five. The lady photographer (a blond) has taken more than a dozen shots of the two, in order to get "the perfect one." This could take all night.
"Smile!" she demands. They are smiling. "Say 'macaroni and cheese,'" she recommends. They do, but it's still not enough.
"You're not smiling enough," she tells the little one. If he smiled any broader he'd be grotesque.
"Everyone tickle him."
They do, but still - apparently - not to the satisfaction of our perfectionist picture girl.
Family returns.
"Are you ready to see Santa yet?" Mother asks, undeterred by her child's insistence to the contrary. I have come to the conclusion that their cunning plan is to lead the tousle-haired child in circles until she relents from sheer exhaustion, dizziness or deliria. To sit on Santa's knee will be her only reprieve from this circlish hell. They do not relent.
Having had my fill, I decide to leave. But as I do, I hear the parents give their stubborn child "one last chance" before discussing Plan B.
"Maybe we should just go," the mother says, sounding a touch resigned.
"Yeah," the father agrees. "We'll come back after we do some shopping."
And you know what, I believe they just might.
Saturday, December 04, 2004
bah, humbug
I want to clarify, before I say anything else, that I'm not an Ebenezer Scrooge. Or a Christmas Grinch, a pre-Clarence George Bailey or in any other way a foe, adversary or saboteur of the blessed day. There is only a small handful of people I'd like to see boiled in their own pudding, and none of them due to their observance of this so called season of mirth.
But.
I have to admit, I'm just not that into it. I mean, I love the lights, dig the carols, and am always into presies (given and received), but I've been so overexposed to the whole "magic" myth, the hype, hullabaloo and high expectations, that I'm totally jaded. I don't care. Leave me alone, little elf, and take your candy canes with you.
I think this started after my first Christmas away (1992, when I rented a flat in England with some friends). Homesick to death, I expected the next Christmas to be perfection. Magic. The whole Hallmark experience, where everyone shoots twinkles from their eyes with the joy of it. In fact, it was like every other Christmas: Get up, open presents, sit for a bit and look at the mess, get dressed, eat chocolate and oranges for breakfast, chill, have dinner (turkey et al), and watch 1960's era Christmas cartoons all afternoon. Or something like that. Where's the magic? Where's the transformation?
Talking to a group of kindergarten kids last week about the "real" meaning of Christmas, the point was just driven home even more. "It started in October and it ends after you open your presents," said one observant boy. He must shop at Costco. Or anywhere, really, now that putting out the Christmas decorations with the Halloween stuff is pretty much the norm, so that by the end of November I'm sick to death at the sight of yet another musical Father Christmas figurine, or reindeer that light up. Don't even get me started on tinsel.
"Christmas is all about Santa," another kid said. Oh. So, all this commotion over a mythical character (as opposed to even, say, the original Nicholas he was based on). Why not Mickey Mouse, or Bambi, then? Set aside a day for the Western World to fete them? We could have a different one every month. And why do parents want so desperately for their children to believe in something that doesn't exist - a lie. To what end?
As for the birth of Jesus, a Saviour for the world, well that's all well and good among the small minority who actually believe this - - if only he was actually born at this time of year. Which he wasn't. It's no more his birthday than it is mine. Read your history (key words "Saturnalia," "Mithra" and "Constantine"). In fact, prior to the publishing of A Christmas Carol, in 1846, the "traditional" Christmas celebration was described as an out of control, drunken tumult. Fun, perhaps, but hardly spiritual.
I'm not a scandalmonger, I'm just saying. I don't get the point. I'll still dig into the turkey, call out a "Happy Christmas!" to everyone I meet, and have a good time while I do - make no mistake. But I do think it's a humbug, at least according to the literal definition of the word. Sorry, but there you go.
And since there's enough commercial fluff and cheer around to fill each and every big box store and then some, I'm going to take a different slant on the season, in my upcoming entries. A realistic, cutting through the BS sort of angle. Take it for what it's worth, which may or may not be a lot. The point, when it comes down to it, is a good read. And feel free to disagree - as long as you post your thoughts as you do. In the meantime, though, "and to all a good night."
But.
I have to admit, I'm just not that into it. I mean, I love the lights, dig the carols, and am always into presies (given and received), but I've been so overexposed to the whole "magic" myth, the hype, hullabaloo and high expectations, that I'm totally jaded. I don't care. Leave me alone, little elf, and take your candy canes with you.
I think this started after my first Christmas away (1992, when I rented a flat in England with some friends). Homesick to death, I expected the next Christmas to be perfection. Magic. The whole Hallmark experience, where everyone shoots twinkles from their eyes with the joy of it. In fact, it was like every other Christmas: Get up, open presents, sit for a bit and look at the mess, get dressed, eat chocolate and oranges for breakfast, chill, have dinner (turkey et al), and watch 1960's era Christmas cartoons all afternoon. Or something like that. Where's the magic? Where's the transformation?
Talking to a group of kindergarten kids last week about the "real" meaning of Christmas, the point was just driven home even more. "It started in October and it ends after you open your presents," said one observant boy. He must shop at Costco. Or anywhere, really, now that putting out the Christmas decorations with the Halloween stuff is pretty much the norm, so that by the end of November I'm sick to death at the sight of yet another musical Father Christmas figurine, or reindeer that light up. Don't even get me started on tinsel.
"Christmas is all about Santa," another kid said. Oh. So, all this commotion over a mythical character (as opposed to even, say, the original Nicholas he was based on). Why not Mickey Mouse, or Bambi, then? Set aside a day for the Western World to fete them? We could have a different one every month. And why do parents want so desperately for their children to believe in something that doesn't exist - a lie. To what end?
As for the birth of Jesus, a Saviour for the world, well that's all well and good among the small minority who actually believe this - - if only he was actually born at this time of year. Which he wasn't. It's no more his birthday than it is mine. Read your history (key words "Saturnalia," "Mithra" and "Constantine"). In fact, prior to the publishing of A Christmas Carol, in 1846, the "traditional" Christmas celebration was described as an out of control, drunken tumult. Fun, perhaps, but hardly spiritual.
I'm not a scandalmonger, I'm just saying. I don't get the point. I'll still dig into the turkey, call out a "Happy Christmas!" to everyone I meet, and have a good time while I do - make no mistake. But I do think it's a humbug, at least according to the literal definition of the word. Sorry, but there you go.
And since there's enough commercial fluff and cheer around to fill each and every big box store and then some, I'm going to take a different slant on the season, in my upcoming entries. A realistic, cutting through the BS sort of angle. Take it for what it's worth, which may or may not be a lot. The point, when it comes down to it, is a good read. And feel free to disagree - as long as you post your thoughts as you do. In the meantime, though, "and to all a good night."
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