Soapbox

My Annual Christmas Rant.

     I believe that I would enjoy Christmas more if there weren't so many people involved.
 
   December is a difficult time, so dark and empty. Everything is going to sleep and you sometimes wonder if it will ever wake up again. It is the perfect time for a celebration of rebirth and light, for candles and greenery and the smell of spicy, sweet things baking to warm you and sustain you. Perfect for singing songs of hope and renewal, and all the elements that make solstice celebrations and the Christmas story so timely, and so sorely needed.
      But then people just muck it all up.
    There's so damn much hustle and bustle: shopping and parties and god-damned ho-ho-ho. So many expectations.
    God forbid you feel introspective and reflective and subdued as the earth slumbers toward spring. No – you have to be merry! And bright! You have to decorate your house, inside and out, and go to parties, and host parties, and shop and wrap; caroling, maybe, and sending cards— make sure you send one to everybody who sent you one last year, for goodness' sake! Bake cookies for the neighbors, don't be the last to get your tree up and listen to little Michael Jackson tattle on Mommy for kissing Santa Claus.
    As for Santa- that guy is selling cars and beer and women's lingere! He shops at Sears- no, Macys- no, Best Buy! Apparently all those elves got outsourced just like so many of us did.

   Christmas used to arrive rather more quietly, like the crunch of a boot through new-fallen snow. Now it screams like a freight train, with the subtlety of a hurricane and just as disruptive to everyone's lives. It has become an orgy of noise and chaos, of traffic and bank balances, with glitter everywhere- even between your toes- and plastic snowflakes and everywhere is red, like the earth is bleeding.
    Lovely green trees, meant to be a symbol of continuing life are covered, every inch of them, with ribbons and bells, glitter and light-up angels and sequined nutcrackers and Jersey Shore ornaments… so burdened that you can't even see the green, can't smell that wonderful citrusy aroma…. because the damn thing isn't a tree anyway! It's plastic, made from the same god-damned oil that we're killing each other (and the planet) for.
   How's that for a symbol of life? But it's not even green anyway- it's silver, or pink, with glitter and fake snow. Ah yes, I feel so renewed and hopeful just thinking about it.

   Once before I die, I want a gentle christmas: a doe instead of a bull-elephant. A season of unforced cheerful greetings where no one fights over the script. I want wood smoke in crisp air, one gift, perfect in it's love and intention, a gift of warmth and comfort rather than convenience and 40% off.  I want the glittering eyes of children when that first flake of snow, like a crystalline dream, drifts into their outstretched hands.
   Until that perfect day comes I will try to create tiny moments that speak to the same spirit: early morning Christmas day, before the family gets up, sitting in the almost-dark by the tree we decorated with tradition and paper-crafted memories, sipping coffee, breathing the stillness and the peace, holding it in amber as talisman against the after-christmas sales looming on the horizon.