Over the last few years I’ve come to dread the Holiday season. Starting sometime in mid-October, before Halloween, and continuing through Christmas and New Year’s Day, a veritable bevy of holidays parade through the weeks. And with them, expectations that you will participate, purchase, spend, decorate, and generally be one-of-the-masses. If not, what is wrong with you?
We are constantly barraged with advertisements telling us what we should do, how we should act, where we should go and how we should feel. Long looks from neighbors and coworkers when you don’t wear the right colors. Expected attendance at Christmas parties. The inevitable holiday family movie, with everyone making up and getting along in the end. A fairytale of good times that everyone can enjoy.
But life doesn’t always follow those paths. And when it doesn’t we are expected to feel bad that they don’t and we ourselves somehow bear that blame. Is it any wonder that depression is highest during the holiday season? I think perhaps it is not just due to the shorter days.
I used to feel that way, that I was wrong in my budding dislike of the season. That I should be happy this time of year. That is, until several years ago, when I was told by someone I respected that there are no rules. I can chose not to participate. Or perhaps instead, take some part of that holiday season make it my own.
Sage advice.
I don’t consider myself a Christian anymore and haven’t for some time. So why was I celebrating Christmas? Why am I stressing about something I no longer believe. Why am I pandering to the pressures of a holiday that strikes me more as an opportunity for consumerism, than a celebration of spirituality.
I can’t say that it was a simple or quick transition. I clung to my past like a lifeline. But times change and people change. I changed, too. I learned I could navigate that pool of holiday cheer. That I really did know how to swim and swim away from it. That I don’t have to get in line and get with the program. That there is a different drummer out there if you listen hard enough.
So starting with Samhain, I will try, as I do every year now, to walk my own path through the field of holiday land mines. You won’t find me putting out pumpkins or hanging bed sheet ghosts from my myrtle tree. You won't see cardboard turkeys in faux Puritan hats in my windows. My December decorations will be of more natural things like evergreen wreaths and centerpieces. I love the smell of them and they get an honored place on the table, and by the front door. The week before and after the Solstice, I will light an oil lamp each night for a few hours. And on the day of the Winter Solstice we will mix our batch of mead and open the one present we get for each other. We will walk out into the park and watch the sun set over the lake. Then, when we return to the house, we light the candles, eschewing any electric lights. Each a tiny bonfire of marking the longest night of the year, and welcoming the return of the sun, with one lone flame burning through the night until sunrise.
I still buy Christmas presents for family and friends. I respect their tradition, just as I hope they will respect mine. And I will continue to say "Happy Holidays" as we approach the end of this year. And to my friends and family I may even wish you a Merry Christmas, or Happy Hanukkah, or Ramadan, or Kwanzaa, or Omisoka. I may even wish you a Merry Solstice if I know which way your wind blows, so to speak. But please don’t take offense if I wish you “Happy Holidays". Christians aren’t the only ones celebrating a holiday this season. I don’t assume to know your tradition.
Why must you insist I follow yours….?
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