Maybe that’s an overstatement. There are lots of good things about Christmas, especially since I moved away from home six years ago. Free from the burdens of exam season, I return to my parents’ home and relax. Every year, it’s the first time in months that I’ve had nothing to do and nowhere to be. I spend the time preparing baked goods, reading books, watching movies, and, more recently, accompanying my father to the LCBO, where we spend ludicrous amounts of my parents’ money on impossible amounts of beer and liquor. This is usually about December 20th.
On the evening of the 21st, the better part of my local family and hometown friends careen wildly into the first night of a 10-day bender and wake on the 22nd to find more empty bottles than full ones. Having discovered that ludicrous just doesn’t cut it these days, we return to the LCBO that afternoon; the staff eye us warily, unsure how to assess the manner and timing of our return.
In fact, it was a red letter day when I realized, around the age of 17 or 18, that family Christmas gatherings suddenly made a lot more sense now that I knew for certain what drunk people looked like. It certainly explained the disapproving look my Grandmother always had after Christmas dinner, anyway.
I suspect this has something to do with my family’s Scottish heritage. In Scotland, Hogmanay is a New Years’ celebration that can often stretch out for days. It consists primarily of the consumption of whiskey at various friends’ abodes and the accumulation of crowds of said friends as you proceed from one said abode to the next, culminating in empty bottles, upturned kilts, and spoilt haggis. I am certain that my Great-Grandfather and his brothers attempted to import the custom but were thwarted by our puritanical liquor statutes. Furious, two of the brothers boarded the boat and returned home precious few years later. But I digress.
Apart from relaxation and overindulgence, there’s the food, the fellowship, and the presents (everyone knows receiving is better than giving). In less secular terms, Christmas is an important time of year for Christians. The Nativity is perhaps the most well-known Biblical yarn and, for me, the most inspiring. Not for religious reasons, but because, lifted out of context, the story of an unwed couple struggling with an unexplained child cross-country is intriguing, to say the least.
Apparently they were going to pay their taxes. Their taxes. Bethlehem is over 150 kilometres from Nazareth; I looked it up. In a couple of years, once you, dear law student, exhaust your bottomless pit of tuition credits, let me know how you would feel if, after invoicing you for a combined 40% of your gross salary, the fine folks at the Canada Revenue Agency told you to walk from Toronto to Peterborough to deliver it, in cash.
Joking aside, the story as a whole has a mystical and surreal quality that undoubtedly has contributed to its position as a literary archetype over many centuries.
Nonetheless, even at its best, Christmas just seems to be missing out on a lot of stuff that’s going on this time of year. Take Hanukkah for example. Perhaps that’s just me feeling like I’m missing out on most Jewish holidays at Osgoode, but maybe not. I think my first exposure to the Festival of Light was Shari Lewis’ Hanukkah special featuring Emmy Award-winning TV juggernaut Lamb Chop. After explaining why Lamb Chop was not called Pork Chop, Shari taught the children of North America how to make latkes. I still have yet to master the art (I always use too much egg), and Caplansky’s Delicatessen on College Street makes such knock-down drag-out winners that I’ve just quit trying.
My second exposure to the 8-day Feast of Dedication was when Ross Geller, skunked for a Santa costume so close to Christmas, dresses up as the Holiday Armadillo and recounts the story of the Maccabees to his young son for the first time. After the success of Judah’s revolt against Greek King Antiochus IV, the Temple of Jerusalem was rededicated and Hanukkah declared for eight days. However, the vessel of oil for the flame that was to burn throughout the festival only held enough oil for one day. Miraculously, it burned for eight, making the Festival doubly important. Like the story of Christmas, it has the ethereal quality that comes with most ancient spiritual tales. Incidentally, Hanukkah falls between November 27 and December 5 this year. While I don’t envy those studying by the light of the menorah, I wish them all a Chappy Chanukah anyway.
In contrast to the two holidays above, Kwanzaa is a relatively new winter celebration. It is so young, in fact, that its founder, Maulana Karenga, is still alive. Observed between December 26 and January 1, the first Kwanzaa took place in 1966. Karenga, born Ronald Everett, was an icon of the black nationalist movement in the United States.
Now celebrated throughout the pan-African diaspora, Kwanzaa celebrates seven virtues: umoja (unity), kujichagulia (self-determination), ujima (collective work and responsibility), ujamaa (cooperative economics), nia (purpose), kuumba (creativity), and imani (faith). The virtues are meant to fortify the cultural and social ties among African-Americans; to remind them of their heritage, and to re-energize their spirits despite how their people first came to North America and despite the troubles they continue to face.
For me, Christmas time tends to emphasize my immediate family ties, but I had never thought of it as a time to reflect upon my larger community: my ancestors from the British Isles and Germany, my fellow Canadians, and those insufferable folk I go to school with. It’s not a bad idea.
Let us turn now to Festivus. Originally a family tradition of one of Seinfeld’s writers, it entered the popular consciousness as the apparent brainchild of intellectual giant Frank Costanza. Celebrated on December 23 as a form of resistance to the commercialization of the holiday season, mundane events that take place during the day are labelled Festivus miracles. Traditionally, one erects a Festivus pole, and the celebrating group gathers for a Festivus dinner, which suspiciously resembles a Christmas one.
After dinner (and presumably a libation) comes the Airing of the Grievances, in which participants publicly declare ways in which the world and those present have caused them misery over the past year. This is followed by the Feats of Strength, in which the guests must force the Head of the Household to the floor and pin them. Until they are successful, Festivus continues indefinitely. In this way, it is rather like Hogmanay, but with wrestling.
Festivus is not for the faint of heart. I have heard tell of a law firm at which the employees celebrated Festivus each year, airing comical grievances in good jest. Then, one year, someone aired real grievances. Needless to say, the pole went into storage and Festivus was cancelled forevermore. Don’t be that guy. Especially not on Festivus.
All this to say that we should never hesitate to get tied up in our own traditions, be they gift giving, worship, nationalism, potato pancakes, intoxicants, or aluminum poles. Just remember that it may be worth stealing a few extra traditions. It could make your Christmas less lame.