Discarding Christmas

Six A.M. of a rainy day after Christmas; dreary, dark and cold.  Driving to work with the relatively few others of the sleepy and depressed on the freeway; and wondering why.  I guess this is how it is on the day after Christmas.

Christmas is over and nothing says, “Bah, humbug,” like post-Christmas.  Every year Christmas ends at some point between the opening of the last gift and the evening’s last gravy infused belch.  Boxes and wrapping paper scattered on the floor or tucked in a corner near the back door; a slice or two of pie on the kitchen table and a couple of prime rib bones in the fridge. 

When I’m feeling out of sorts in the morning I usually turn off the radio so that I can quietly reflect.  And so on this drippy morning I thought back on the Christmas sermon at Grace Cathedral.  The Reverend Michael Barlowe described the day after Christmas letdown, “For the purely secular celebration of Christmas seems to me something like a joke without a punch line.  It takes you to the very edge and then leaves you hanging and scratching your head wondering what it’s all about.”  Or more simply, is that all there is? 

Should we be surprised at the let down?  Thanks to retailers the madness begins before Halloween with baseball still in play.  Thanksgiving has become an afterthought, a marginalized signpost on the way to Christmas the growing purpose of which is to whip up a shopping frenzy.  A week after Thanksgiving and a tree adorns the front window.  Gift buying, meal planning, parties, events, holiday movies and of course shopping.  And add to these the contradictory messages blitzed by the media that we are supposed to be of goodwill and oh by the by, you must buy, buy, and buy.  We find ourselves like Clark Griswold in the movie Christmas Vacation, chasing the impossible Christmas and then fretting when something doesn’t go exactly as planned.  And in the midst of the frenzy we know that there is that other Christmas; the one with the real meaning be it the religious, birth of Christ or the secular Dickensian time of goodwill towards men.  As Dickens’ Fred Hallowell so aptly put it, “… a kind, forgiving, charitable, pleasant time; the only time I know of in the long calendar of the year, when men and women seem by one consent to open their shut up hearts freely…”  We know that meaning is there, and we want to embrace it yet we’re consumed by our “obligations,” and it gets lost in the clutter of lights, tinsel and credit card receipts.

Even before the big day arrives, exhaustion and frustrations have set in, fuses are short and already plans are afoot to take Christmas down.  Before Christmas Eve posts on Facebook told of the tree coming down on the 26th.  That symbol that just a few weeks earlier was so painstakingly selected, decorated with such reverence was now as scorned as the weird uncle who drinks too much and always overstays his welcome.  Pack away Christmas and get it stowed in the attic and make sure every last pine needle is picked up.  When I was a kid we used to celebrate Christmas, in the Italian tradition, all the way through to the Epiphany on January 6th.  The tree would come down the weekend of or just after that date.  Now we take the tree down just after the New Year.  We continue to light the lights on the tree as well as the outdoor lights.  I think it’s as much a part of trying to keep the holiday spirit as long as possible as much as it is simply tradition.

And this isn’t an easy thing to do.  While many are off on the day after Christmas, many have to go to work.  Before stores open on the 26th the last vestiges of Christmas have been removed by the poor schlubs on a Christmas night crew; all except those items that will go on sale at 50% off.  This year we were all told what a BAD Christmas it was; not because of any particularly significant events that occurred (although there were enough those, thank you) but because holiday sales figures were, as one report put it, “ho-hum.”  Sales growth was far below expectations; the worst since 2008.  And so there you have Christmas 2012 – ho-hum – a financial debacle.  We were bad this Christmas because we weren’t commercial enough.  Because after all it is all about money and business.  A good time to reflect on the words of old Jacob Marley, “Business!  Mankind was my business.  The common welfare was my business; charity, mercy, forbearance, and benevolence were all my business.”   

In his sermon, Reverend Barlowe explains that Christmas, to Christians, represents a beginning, when according to scripture God becomes human.  “And this we declare is only the beginning.  The beginning of our common life with God.  The incarnation is the beginning of our common life with God and while we designate these particular 12 days to celebrate this incarnation the reality remains with us all the time.  So putting aside Christmas until the next round of Christmas carols begins next autumn is not only soul numbing, it’s also an impoverishment of the world.”  But, Reverend Barlowe’s sentiment isn’t just for the religious.  It’s an easy crossover into the secular.  

In years past, when my children were still very young I had my own Christmas tradition.  After everyone had gone to bed, exhausted from opening gifts, entertaining family and playing with new toys, I would sit in the living room often lit only by the light from the fire and read some of Dickens’ Christmas stories, sipping brandy and listening to quiet Christmas carols.  It was a time to contemplate and appreciate the goodness of the day; a final quiet toast.

I don’t drink anymore and frankly I’m at the age where staying up until midnight is beyond my endurance level. This year as Christmas night was passing its final hours, I watched a final holiday movie and before turning out the lights at 10, I read some Dickens. 

As we get busy and preoccupied with the commercialism and gift giving during the season it seems that when we watch some of those holiday movies and listen to the carols, some of that sentiment and goodwill actually splashes on us, even if just a little.  And that sentiment gives us humanity, inspires in us charity and goodwill and; it makes us feel good.  Yet come the 26th we’re eager to toss it to the curb with the now unwelcome tannenbaum.   Why?  Because it’s fun to be surly, miserly and selfish?  I once worked for someone who, upon our return from our one Christmas Day off welcomed us with, “Now that that foolishness is over we can get back to work.”  He was in truth a miserable wretch just about 365 days of the year.   

A Christmas Carol should be required reading every three months or so to remind us, as Scrooge said at the end of his reclamation, to “honor Christmas in my heart and try to keep it all the year."  Reverend Barlowe speaks to us in Christian terms but his message transcends religion.  He is after all speaking to values that are cherished regardless of one’s faith.  “Along with the fellowship of sharing, along with remembering past Christmases, this season is also an opportunity to consider the Christian messages of hope, peace and love.  It isn’t an easy message.  And it flies in the face of all we see around us; suffering, hate, war…The (Christmas) message of hope is still there.  A beacon for the whole world, needed today more than ever.”  

And so here's a holdover Christmas wish; that this year we don't throw out ALL of the Christmas spirit with the dry tree, torn wrapping and broken decorations.