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darren_strangerI was just thinking about this whole Christmas thing, and the many different attitudes towards it i'm seeing expressed about the place, and i'm wondering if the pattern behind it is as simple as it looks - that a major factor really is the 'spirit of Christmas past'.
I've noticed that a few people who seem the most excited and hyped about Christmas also seem to have had a strong Christmas tradition in their family and wonderful memories from their childhood that they want to continue and share with others. Is that true in general or just for some?
Those of us (like me) that don't really care much about it, did you (like me) come from a family that didn't really go into it that much and so don't really have a tradition to care about either way?
And those out there that totally, utterly detest it - what's the deal? Does it hold bad memories or other connotations? Or are there specific things about it that offend you?
Give me the lowdown people, because enquiring minds have nothing better to do..
(Well, i do have things to do, but 'better' is subjective).
I've noticed that a few people who seem the most excited and hyped about Christmas also seem to have had a strong Christmas tradition in their family and wonderful memories from their childhood that they want to continue and share with others. Is that true in general or just for some?
Those of us (like me) that don't really care much about it, did you (like me) come from a family that didn't really go into it that much and so don't really have a tradition to care about either way?
And those out there that totally, utterly detest it - what's the deal? Does it hold bad memories or other connotations? Or are there specific things about it that offend you?
Give me the lowdown people, because enquiring minds have nothing better to do..
(Well, i do have things to do, but 'better' is subjective).
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no subject
Date: 2004-12-14 03:20 am (UTC):)
there's nothing remotely religious about my family in general or their christmas celebrations in particular.
no subject
Date: 2004-12-14 03:21 am (UTC)We had a strong Xmas tradition, but I just don't get excited about it.
no subject
Date: 2004-12-14 03:24 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2004-12-14 03:53 am (UTC)Funnily enough there was a time when I didn't much like Christmas. I found it restrictive & oppressive. I went through a process of rediscovering it. I therefore firmly belive that how you view Christmas is a matter of choice. I have a number of reasons to hate Christmas but I don't. I choose not to.
I think working at the drop in centre in St Kilda has shown me a lot about how other people view it. I think it brings up a lot of scars for people.
Everything that happens at Christmas happens at other times of the year too. Christmas is merely a focus. If you choose to hate your family you will do it all year, it perhaps is just more poigniant at Christmas. If you choose to hate commercialism, that is a year round thing too but again Christmas is a distilled image.
You don't have to choose that however. Louise Hay uses the analogy of thought being food at a banquet. Some items you will like, others will make you sick, some are downright rotten. Why would you choose the thoughts that are rotten or make you sick?
For me, its a yin & yang thing. For all the hurts & pain & dissatisfaction that is generated at Christmas I want to show an alternative thought.
If its the obligation of an expensive gift then I want to show you how to buy an inexpensive gift. For the commercialism I want to show you how to personalise it, for the trashiness I want to show you how to fill it with love & caring. I want to show you that you have choice. You can select to have Christmas as a good time, or a bad time or as no time at all. I want you to see choice. My hope is that you choose happiness, the yummy things from the banquet and not the rotten & unsupportive ones.
I have had many people tell me that they didn't know Christmas could be the way it is in my house. They say I have given them back a sense of Christmas. I have reminded them what its supposed to be about. They simply didn't know that this way is one of their choices. Now they know. Now they can make their choice.
no subject
Date: 2004-12-14 04:40 am (UTC)Mmm, i've read a lot of your tales of Christmas and had an idea why it means so much to you(though i didnt know about the second paragraph) but i think one of the things that really got me thinking about this is remembering a lot of people describing your Christmas events as "..just how i remember it from my childhood", and i'd subsequently noticed that theme running through a lot of the Christmassy excitement this time around too.
For me, i used to think i hated Christmas, but i've since realised that the festival i hate is actually called Crassmas and is a completely different event that just happens to coincide and steal imagery from the former, so i choose to separate the two and ignore the latter altogether. So, while Christmas may not be part of my tradition any more than Ramadan, Oktoberfest or Chinese New Year, i at least realise i have no reason to hate it any more than i would those festivals (and would respect and join in sonmeone's celebration of it the same as i would those).
Though, that said, there is one thing i don't like about Christmas, which unfortunately is a big part of it in Elaine's family - the giving and receiving of presents (but that's just a personal thing, and a whole 'nother essay).
no subject
Date: 2004-12-14 05:10 am (UTC)We discussed the giving of gifts last year, or was it the year before? I can't remember now. Did you read the piece on one of my recent posts about gifts for those you don't really want to give gifts to? It may or may not help.
no subject
Date: 2004-12-14 06:04 am (UTC)I did read that, and it reminds me a lot of how Elaine approaches Christmas (things like giving a little crash test dummy to her stepdad the year he crashed his van) though it's something i can never seem to get the hang of.
The reason for that is also something i've given a bit of thought to lately (or for a while, actually), namely that a big reason i have trouble thinking of presents for people (aside from not being practised at it) is that i don't take the time to know people well enough to know what they would like. In that respect, the whole present giving thing is both a symptom of and maybe a way to work on being far too self-absorbed.
The problem with that comes from the other reason i have difficulty choosing presents for people - that the whole subject stresses me out so much i can't even think about it (seriously - it's almost a phobia, and i know there have been numerous times when i've not gone to something i'd otherwise liked to, just because the question of having to come up with a present has stressed me out so much i've just piked on the whole thing).
Kind of a chicken and egg thing, really.
And it's not just me, i know other people get stressed about it too. I keep coming back to a described picture of my father in law wandering blankly up and down aisles of 24-hour sales in between working two jobs, not having a clue what to get and ending up spending too much money he can't afford on an expensive watch because he's too frazzled from working those two jobs to even remember that's what he bought last year. I think that's why it's such a stressful time for many people.
(As to why i hate getting presents, that's easy - it's simply the guilt of knowing someone spent ridiculous amount of money, thought or energy on getting me something i don't appreciate, like or want, coupled with some notion that if you have to specify what you do want it defeats the whole purpose).
So, in a very large nutshell, that's why that is one thing about Christmas i don't like (that i can't just write off as a Crassmas thing).
Heh, that reply turned out to be quite a mouthful (screenful?), but it's all stuff i've been turning over in my head that's all spewing out now that i put it in words.
no subject
Date: 2004-12-14 06:33 am (UTC)As I've said, I avoid the harried experience by buying all year around (it also defrays the expense). As I said, Southland last week-end was a hideous place to be. If one felt that experience was necessary I can understand not wanting to partake.
Its interesting you mention the not knowing people well enough. I went through a bit of that this year. I was given Birthday gifts that were amazing & expressed such a true understanding of who I am. It was amazingly humbling. I felt the pressure of not being able to meet those standards. Then I realised that the gifts given to me were because these people loved who I was. If I am not as articulate as they are in my gift giving then that is part of who I am too. Would they want guilt to be part of those gifts? I don't think so.
I am still hoping you *might* just make it for Boxing Day...with Punch, although I fully accept that you have said no. I was wrapping a gift on Sunday that I thought would be perfect for you, should you be there. It came from no greater knowledge than that you like a pirate punk band. It cost me all of $2. It has no emotional attachment & may cause you to smile, even perhaps have a giggle at my expense. I often give presents for no other reson than _I_ find them amusing. If the person receiving doesn't get the joke *shrug*. If I don't know the person at all or if I can't think of anything suitable I have no problem going back to chocolates, biscuits, incence, candles that have no other connection than that.
I've also learned to not be offended if some-one passes a gift I select on to some-one else. Its really no big deal. My experience is that more good, more happiness comes from a simple box of shortbread than not.
I really am not trying to convince you one way or another about gifts but I do know people find them stressful and I do know that they don't have to be. Its just an interesting discussion & one that may assist me when dealing with people who reject the concept of gifts.
no subject
Date: 2004-12-14 12:12 pm (UTC)Absolutely! I make presents throughout the year for birthdays, housewarmings, xmas and other significant personal events. Sometimes my gifts don't strike a chord with the person I give them to, and I would hope they pass them onto someone else rather than throwing them out.
I had this happen a while ago - I'd given a friend a home-made candle for his birthday, which he professed to love. I visited a mutual friend a while later, where I saw the candle I'd given him! He'd passed it on to her as a loving gift, without saying it was made by me.
Suffice to say I'll be giving him something other than a candle this year. She loved the candle he gave her, so she'll be getting more of those.
Crassmas
Date: 2004-12-14 11:20 am (UTC)My memories of Christmas from childhood....You know, I can only really recall two that stood out, and both involved my Dad. Once was when I was about 6 or 7 and I got some kind of doll that I had wanted and I ran into the bedroom that my father was sleeping in (which wasn't the same as my mother that morning) and showing him what I got. This woke both him and sibling up. I didn't realise at the time that this was the start of divorce for my parents.
The other memory of my Dad at Christmas was him coming over for a visit (can't remember why) and him sitting down to have Christmas lunch with us (long after the divorce) and him feeling relieved that he could sit down and relax instead of dealing with the demanding new wife.
It's funny what Christmas things you remember and which ones all blend into a package of nothingness. I suppose it really has nothing to do with Christmas at all, just the person involved, but those two memories are still the ones that stand out at this time of year for me.
There is nothing traditional about Christmas except me cooking for the family, but I like that because it's one day I can be in charge. I enjoy the family get together, but it isn't anything distinctly different from a birthday or other family celebration.
So, really.. I don't care that it's Christmas or not. I doesn't stress me out and it doesn't make me thrilled to bits. I do enjoy the time off work, though!
Btw, I haven't got a username yet and I can't be stuffed doing it tonight.. just thought I would make a virgin post.
~I Beloved~
no subject
Date: 2004-12-14 11:14 pm (UTC)Whereas i don't remember things like that. I do vaguely remember Christmas being a bigger deal, decorations and such, over with Dad's new family, but that always felt like someone else's occasion that we weren't really part of.
(The only specific Christmas memory i can recall is one year, aged about 5 or 6, when i had to have explained to me that Santa had delivered the wrong scooter to our house and that i was really meant to get this smaller, crappier (cheaper) one. Heh, maybe that was a childhood trauma that gave rise to the lingering feeling of "Feh, 'sall bullshit innit?")
A nice excuse for a family get-together is all it really means to me too. All the decorations and lights and carols and whatnot just seem like an interesting but strange foreign custom from someone else's culture.
no subject
Date: 2004-12-14 04:03 am (UTC)Christmas lunch used to be at my Great-Grandparent's place. Their children would be there and their grandchildren and (like me) great-grandchildren, as well assorted cousins and family friends. After my GGP died my grandparents had Christmas lunch at their place. Silly hats from the crackers were almost mandatory as was having the kids at the "children's table". As the oldest of my generation I graduated to the adult table fairly quickly.
I still put out a pillowcase under the tree (we didn't do stockings).
I recent years with my mother's family having moved away (one in NZ and one in QLD) there are no longer the large family get togethers. While it means that Christmas has lost some of the magic it also means that I don't have to worry about my Uncle and one of my aunts getting into yet *another* argument :-)
no subject
Date: 2004-12-14 05:50 am (UTC)My family never did much on the day - family get-togethers tended to mean family-drama and as the oldest child I was the brunt of most of it. Or perhaps that's just it seemed? Who knows. In any case, nothing was ever right. Presents always seemed to cause fights and disappointments, food was appalling, games created injuries (my nose was broken during a cricket match one Chrissy: I was reading under a tree) and so it went on.
When I was fifteen I discovered the great demand for hospitality workers on the day so spent the next decade working, and thus avoiding the family horrors for the most part. I went to an assortment of boyfriends' family dos and they were all nicer to each other than my dysfunctional family, although perhaps not coincidentally they seemed to require the consumption of large quantities of booze.
As I got older I avoided many Christmas days by living in other cities. My last family Christmas (a couple of years ago) was predictably disappointing but blandness is preferable in many ways. I think we're off the hook for a while.
There's something about all that fake jolility, the enforced enjoiners to spend money on others that gets my back up. I love giving presents to people, but I'd rather do it in my own time, not some ridiculous annual consumer orgy. Working in retail didn't help my dislike of the season. Bah Humbug!
You can't arrange any social events because everyone is busy. Small business shuts down for weeks, perhaps even a month. It's very hard to get even basic things done - our local High St (Westgarth) is like a ghost town once Christmas arrives, everyone shuts and you can't get a coffee, much less anything else. Aargh! I hate it! Already things are getting delayed because we're all off shopping and lunching and boozing and....and....and!!!
no subject
Date: 2004-12-14 06:15 am (UTC)Ah, this is the sort of thing i was wondering about. It's easy to see the reminiscences of wonderful childhood Christmases, and i'm quite sure my own indifference goes back to it not being any big deal in my family, but i had only a half-glimpsed, sneaking suspicion that some outright hostility might be similarly linked to it having been a stressful, tension-filled occasion.
Perhaps it is a big factor after all.
no subject
Date: 2004-12-14 06:46 am (UTC)So if I am correct in the reading, much, but not necessarily all, of your dislike of the season comes from your childhood experiences right? As powerful as these are, do you feel that, should you choose to do so, you could release these experiences & acknowledge that, as an adult, you can create your own experience as you would like it to be? Of course you can choose not to. It is your choice.
My other question is do you think that all the joviality is fake? There are no enforced enjoiners to spend money at Christmas. It is up to you. You obviously feel it a social mores of weight but you can choose not to partake. Do you feel every gift given to you is only given out of obligation?
Our views and experiences of Chrostmas are so totally different. I really hope I am not offending. I respect your right to hate it. I would however like to understand better.
*hugs*
Pop
no subject
Date: 2004-12-14 09:16 am (UTC)I appreciate all that stuff about it being my choice and that I can make it into something else, something nicer - but for the moment it really isn't important enough to me. Overall I consider myself to be a good person: can't I have one little gripe?
I certainly don't think the jolility is always fake! I'm just being cynical as a visible element of the season is commercial. For me Christmas is pretty much something that happens to other people - I have no family here to spend it with, my family in Perth might send me a Christmas card (and vice versa) but that's about it. Last year, they rang me and my father had me crying on the phone in no time flat. Why go through that every year? For me, Christmas is about family, and my family don't operate that way.
I hope that you haven't taken offense at my comments - I admire you and your ability to enjoy Christmas and life in general.
no subject
Date: 2004-12-14 10:05 am (UTC)Of course you're allowed to have a gripe and as long as your not having a sad time of year then thats all very cool. I also want to avoid situations that have me in tears whether they are at the tail end of December or in the middle of June.
What struck me about your initial post, now having seen this response is perhaps a little weird, but I think you'll appreciate it.
You are the Michael Moore of my Christmas. You provide the counter argument to my version. You went to the other extreme to balance out all my...whats the word?...over-nicety.You know how Michael Moore provides a counter srguement by drawing assumtions that are somewhat extreme but based in fact, well thats what you've done.
And all that stuff about choice, from your second post it appears to me like you've made a choice.So there's nowt wrong with that.
I too have thought about volunteer work on Christmas Day, considering that my main Christmas is Christmas Eve. Somehow its just never seemed the right year & now as my folks are getting on I think I want to relish however many Christmases I have left with them.
One day my Christmas will have to change & it will be a tough change. Until then I'll choose to spend the day with them.
*hugs*
From the Grinch Camp
Date: 2004-12-14 06:50 am (UTC)My family has always had big Christmasses.
Usually starting at 6pm Christmas Eve, going all the way through to the end of Boxing Day.
Back in the Philippines, this was due to the number of relatives that need visiting, and the fact that the extended family is actually quite large.
Since coming to Australia, we've still shared a fairly large Christmas, this time more with friends than family.
This situation hasn't changed much with my marriage to B. As she's got a fairly large family. And in general, I don't have an issue with this part of Christmas. [1]
However, the reason I put myself in the Grinch Camp is that Chistmas seems to be a time of year when I'm usually sad deep inside. This has happened now for the past 8 or so years. While I may in fact seem like I'm enjoying myself with friends, deep down, I'm totally miserable. Whether this is due to some bad memories of the Christmas season, I'm unsure. But its just one of those times when self loathing and depression seems to hit me. And really, its that feeling of despair and self pity that I hate the most. [2]
[1] In fact, I think this year is the first year in a while that I won't spend Christmas eve with my folks (The only other time I can remember is when I had enlisted in the Army... over Christmas)
[2] One would think it was the copious amounts of Karaoke abuse I had to endure around Christmas time that would have put me off... Or the insane amounts of shallowness and falseness but no, its me that I hate during Christmas.
Re: From the Grinch Camp
Date: 2004-12-14 07:01 am (UTC)I wonder, and totally out of left field, whether it might be an environmental thing along the lines of Seasonal Adjustment Disorder, which mostly occurs in winter for those affected. Some people are prone to it & others are not.
Obviously the psychological answer would make sense but I can't help but think maybe Christmas is only a symbol of a larger problem & whether that problem may not be as much physiological as psychological.
Or alternatively I could be talking out my butt. Either option is a possibility.
Re: From the Grinch Camp
Date: 2004-12-14 12:40 pm (UTC)It would fit, cept that I'm actually a winter person. :)
And Christmas in the P.I. is in the rainy season (not really cold, just wet)
I'd like to say its purely psychological, but eh, I'm not exactly qualified to make that judgement call.
But yeah, tis the season to be jolly and all that... cept I'm not.
Re: From the Grinch Camp
Date: 2004-12-14 11:30 pm (UTC)I've heard of a lot of depression around Christmas, but usually attributed to loneliness or mourning lost loved ones etc.
What you described in the other post (the feeling sad for the world one) is how i feel a lot of the time, when i can't distract myself from thinking about it, but not any more or less at Christmas. Maybe there's something specific that pushes it to the surface more for you this time of year.
I hope this one doesn't suck to badly, or at least the new year washes the clouds away.
Re: From the Grinch Camp
Date: 2004-12-15 01:47 am (UTC)In previous years, I've had something to either distract me from the self loathing or something to focus all that energy on.
This year, its surfaced a little stronger because I've got no real focus to apply all that self loathing energy on. (usually I get almost obsessive with work...)
Still, I think I'll be fine (in the long run). It may mean that I'm going to try and get to as many social events as I can... but who knows? :)
no subject
Date: 2004-12-14 07:07 am (UTC)My Dad handled the whole Christmas period by attempting to attach himself to any Christmas gathering he could find, which involved us being dragged to family gatherings of compete strangers.
My Mum treated the whole December festivities as something that happened to other people. She made a token effort when we were young but once we hit our teenage years we all but stopped commemorating it.
As an adult Christmas became just like the other infrequent visits to the parents for dinner. The combination of delicate familial politics and a 150km round trip drive from home to mum's, over to dad's then back again made relaxing on the day a virtual impossibility.
Since moving to Melbourne Christmas has become a day to catch up with the 'orphans' - fellow migrants who's family are miles away. When it works it is a joyous picnic with friends on a lovely sunny day. When it doesn't its just a way of filling the time on an otherwise really boring public holiday.
Seriously, walk the streets on Christmas day, its like the Marie Celeste.
no subject
Date: 2004-12-14 07:59 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2004-12-14 08:04 am (UTC)That said, spending last Christmas with my own loved ones was utterly wonderful.
no subject
Date: 2004-12-14 09:00 am (UTC)Anyone who doesn't turn up to Xmas lunch on Christmas Day is disowned until the next year. Even if they're visiting their in-laws on off years.
God forbid we should try to alter the menu from year to year (it's enough trouble trying to convince my grandparents to hold it somewhere other than their house, even though they're both over 80 and neither of them are really capable of catering for 20 people anymore).
My mother, this year, has already thrown several drama-queen fits.
The arguing... oh my lord, the arguing...
Add into that having worked in retail for nine and a half years (that's nine consecutive Xmases), and I'm really incredibly over it all. Oh, and being a musician and having to play the same f*cking Xmas carols every f*cking year.
I can't even stand the thought of having to go Xmas shopping. I wandered around a department store yesterday afternoon for half an hour with a blank look on my face and growing horror in my head, and managed to get nothing.
This year - I'm glad to be working on Xmas day night, and I'm sorely tempted to go to Cab Noc on Xmas Eve after I've been through the first round of family angst (we do lunch on both Xmas Eve and Xmas Day).
(Oh my, that turned out quite vitriolic!)
no subject
Date: 2004-12-14 11:17 pm (UTC)"(Oh my, that turned out quite vitriolic!)"
Better out than in.
no subject
Date: 2004-12-14 10:31 pm (UTC)And I've invented my own little set of traditions and rituals, such as having a few people over and watching The Nightmare before Christmas on the 23rd.
So while I had great xmases as a child, I prefer xmases as an adult. My brother, however, who also had good childhood xmases, can't be bothered about the whole thing. Horses for courses, I guess.
Christmas is exhausting
Date: 2004-12-14 11:01 pm (UTC)Several years later - parents divorced, everyone older, grandparent duties. Need I say more. Duty, duty, duty. No fun. Stressed mother and arguing siblings. No fun.
In between then and now, I became an apostate of the Catholic, and lots of my relatives died.
Now mother is still stressed and whingy, but is determined to have a traditional Christmas. I really do not want to celebrate in this way for several reasons, but feel obligated to.
No fun.
This is why I hate Christmas despite the family tradition. And being totally non religious, i don't see the point. Plus my family suck really badly. I offered my mum a joint for Christmas. She wasn't impressed.
Re: Christmas is exhausting
Date: 2004-12-14 11:40 pm (UTC)More joint for you then. (Did it help?)
Maybe joints should be passed around at Christmas, at least where stress is running rampant. Surely an ultra traditional Christmas could only be improved with people dancing about singing "It's a reefer, would you like one Reverend?".
Re: Christmas is exhausting
Date: 2004-12-15 12:48 am (UTC)I like that idea. Heh. And no, I haven't posted about Christmas, I'm not decided yet.
A Christmas Carrot
Date: 2004-12-15 01:12 am (UTC)"Aye mon, jus' trimmin' the tree.."
(Jokes he who doesn't even smoke reefer).
Re: A Christmas Carrot
Date: 2004-12-15 01:24 am (UTC)In light of your post (and the fact that Tal's birthday has passed now, it was on the 10th) I've blown up our Christmas tree.
Yes, it's inflatable. I love it. It stands for all the irreverance that I think *should* be given to Christmas. And it's about 5 years old now, so even has a decided lean. :-)