Today is the third day of Christmas; your true love should be giving you three French hens, two turtledoves and a partridge in a pear tree, but probably will not. Traditionally, the Christmas season lasts 12 days, from Christmas Day until January 6, the Feast of the Epiphany, when the magi were supposed to have arrived from the east, bearing gifts.
It’s December 27th and Christmas has been cleared from the table. If you indulge in electronic media or leave your house today, your senses will be assaulted by the promotion of a “year-end sales event” with “January white sales” waiting in the wings. Our calendar is now determined by merchandising and merchandising depends on consumers feeling a need, which can supposedly be fulfilled by the next purchase. Emphasis on the next purchase. That’s why Christmas decorations begin to appear in stores in early November, that’s why “Christmas” specials begin to fill the airwaves before Thanksgiving dinner has been properly digested. You need to be kept feeling that it will take three more weeks and 20 more purchases – three of them major purchases – before you achieve that fullness your life has been lacking. Of course, it’s always three more weeks and 20 more purchases; it’s like the old barroom sign that promised “Free Beer Tomorrow.”
In truth, Christmas now ends before Christmas. Christmas ends at close of business on Christmas Eve. All through the month of December, there was no talk of peace on earth – there’s been very little of that this year – but the news delivered nightly reports on the progress of holiday sales – which were also a disappointment.
Well, why not? It’s a free country, and if people choose to celebrate Christmas with an all-out assault on their credit ratings, so be it. Christmas was once a religious holiday, but religious holidays are best observed voluntarily; force-fed religion is no religion at all.
I did feel some pity, though, when I read in the Washington Post a few weeks ago, that Trappist monks in Virginia, a group of celibate men who want to celebrate Christmas the old-fashioned way, are inundated each December with orders for fruitcakes, which the sell to earn their income. Like so many secular merchants, the monks rely on Christmas sales for a significant percent of their income, but they’re probably so exhausted that they doze off during Vespers.
If it’s any consolation, today is also the second day of Kwanzaa, on which the ideal of Kujichagulia, or self-determination, is observed. Kwanzaa is the invention of Dr. Maulana Ron Karenga and was first observed in 1966. It combines ceremonial aspects of several African harvest festivals. The name Kwanzaa comes from the Swahili phrase “matunda ya kwanza” which means “first fruits.”
Kwanzaa will probably never be big business, the way Christmas is, and I think that will be just fine with Dr. Karenga, because he conceived of Kwanzaa, in part, as a reaction against the commercial exploitation of Christmas, and that was in 1966.
So there’s Kwanzaa, and there’s Hanukkah, which for decades has felt like the neglected stepchild of December celebrations. Thanks to events of recent years, we are aware of the Muslim holy month of Ramadan. Maybe we pay more attention to Ramadan and Hanukkah and Kwanzaa because of multicultural Pollyannas like me, who natter away about inclusiveness – or maybe more people are paying attention to alternative traditions because Christmas has become a spiritual letdown – just an empty box wrapped in pretty paper.
Christmas – or Kwanzaa, or any holiday – depends on what we make of it, and if we need more meaning than the culture is willing to yield, it’s up to us to go out and find it. So Merry Christmas to all, even if it’s two days late, or maybe we’ve still got ten days to go.
Two Down, Ten to Go
Today is the third day of Christmas; your true love should be giving you three French hens, two turtledoves and a partridge in a pear tree, but probably will not. Traditionally, the Christmas season lasts 12 days, from Christmas Day until January 6, the Feast of the Epiphany, when the magi were supposed to have arrived from the east, bearing gifts.
It’s December 27th and Christmas has been cleared from the table. If you indulge in electronic media or leave your house today, your senses will be assaulted by the promotion of a “year-end sales event” with “January white sales” waiting in the wings. Our calendar is now determined by merchandising and merchandising depends on consumers feeling a need, which can supposedly be fulfilled by the next purchase. Emphasis on the next purchase. That’s why Christmas decorations begin to appear in stores in early November, that’s why “Christmas” specials begin to fill the airwaves before Thanksgiving dinner has been properly digested. You need to be kept feeling that it will take three more weeks and 20 more purchases – three of them major purchases – before you achieve that fullness your life has been lacking. Of course, it’s always three more weeks and 20 more purchases; it’s like the old barroom sign that promised “Free Beer Tomorrow.”
In truth, Christmas now ends before Christmas. Christmas ends at close of business on Christmas Eve. All through the month of December, there was no talk of peace on earth – there’s been very little of that this year – but the news delivered nightly reports on the progress of holiday sales – which were also a disappointment.
Well, why not? It’s a free country, and if people choose to celebrate Christmas with an all-out assault on their credit ratings, so be it. Christmas was once a religious holiday, but religious holidays are best observed voluntarily; force-fed religion is no religion at all.
I did feel some pity, though, when I read in the Washington Post a few weeks ago, that Trappist monks in Virginia, a group of celibate men who want to celebrate Christmas the old-fashioned way, are inundated each December with orders for fruitcakes, which the sell to earn their income. Like so many secular merchants, the monks rely on Christmas sales for a significant percent of their income, but they’re probably so exhausted that they doze off during Vespers.
If it’s any consolation, today is also the second day of Kwanzaa, on which the ideal of Kujichagulia, or self-determination, is observed. Kwanzaa is the invention of Dr. Maulana Ron Karenga and was first observed in 1966. It combines ceremonial aspects of several African harvest festivals. The name Kwanzaa comes from the Swahili phrase “matunda ya kwanza” which means “first fruits.”
Kwanzaa will probably never be big business, the way Christmas is, and I think that will be just fine with Dr. Karenga, because he conceived of Kwanzaa, in part, as a reaction against the commercial exploitation of Christmas, and that was in 1966.
So there’s Kwanzaa, and there’s Hanukkah, which for decades has felt like the neglected stepchild of December celebrations. Thanks to events of recent years, we are aware of the Muslim holy month of Ramadan. Maybe we pay more attention to Ramadan and Hanukkah and Kwanzaa because of multicultural Pollyannas like me, who natter away about inclusiveness – or maybe more people are paying attention to alternative traditions because Christmas has become a spiritual letdown – just an empty box wrapped in pretty paper.
Christmas – or Kwanzaa, or any holiday – depends on what we make of it, and if we need more meaning than the culture is willing to yield, it’s up to us to go out and find it. So Merry Christmas to all, even if it’s two days late, or maybe we’ve still got ten days to go.