Christmas Presence

Pope Julius 1 was no fool when he decided in the fourth century to declare December 25 as the birth of Jesus and hence to be called Feast of Nativity. In a remarkable marketing move to leverage the age old pagan holiday Saturnalia, he chose a date that had been celebrated by humans for time immemorial due to the Winter Solstice. Seeing the days get shorter and darkness descending upon us, who wouldn’t want to celebrate the remarkable turnaround when the sun begins returning to light our world? Even understanding the science does not dispel the mystery.

Needless to say, the Pope’s decision was a huge success in bolstering the growth of Christianity to the world dominance it attained. He did for Christianity what Steve Jobs did for computers.

In the past, Christmas time had been celebrated more like Mardi Gras throughout the centuries. This continued to be the case in Europe up until the Puritans and Oliver Cromwell literally cancelled it in early 17th Century England. The cancellation was due to its lack of biblical reference, and undoubtedly due to its bacchanal like atmosphere. In typical Puritan fashion, they resented getting too carried away with holidays.

It wasn’t until the 19th Century that Charles Dickens wrote The Christmas Carol and resurrected Christmas to be a time of charity and giving to the poor. We are all painfully aware that, since the mid - 20th Century, ‘charity’ has been coopted by the retail sector to mean a buying bonanza by stressed out consumers and guilt ridden gift giving to people who, by and large, have too much already. The concept of ‘charity’ has been amended by the media with a goal to drive the retail numbers and create the frenzy of over indulgence that we live with presently, courtesy of the ubiquitous and materialistic Boomer generation.

Surprise surprise.

The beauty of Christmas lies in its harmless fantasy for children. Of course, the child’s fantasy of Santa Claus is the most celebrated fantasy. But even when that fantasy is laid to waste with maturity, there remains a fantasy of family on the one hand for some, and for others a fantasy of the curative value of materialism.

Fantasy is the embodiment of hope.

Hence people gather with family members with mixed emotions. Most people also blow their brains out to shop until they drop in the quest to assuage their guilt by showering people with presents. It is a journey of hope and a wish for the redemption through materialism. Giving presents is easier than giving something perhaps more deep and requiring more effort.

The unfortunate underbelly of fantasy is of course disappointment. The role of expectation in the run-up to Christmas is extraordinary in its power to motivate both children and adults in the celebration of Christmas. The child’s simple belief in Santa Claus becomes the voracious appetite for presents - lots of them. As the Santa Claus fantasy is dispelled, the appetite for presents often grows as a replacement mechanism. I confess to having very mixed feelings about seeing affluent children opening a pile of presents without even looking at them, moving from one to the next like a gourmand at a food fair.

Meanwhile, the adult who yearns for ideal family, with its implicit fantasy of intimacy, acceptance and love, is often - not always - faced with the reality of the the usual family disfunction. Christmas time is as much about coming to grips with the lack of expectations being fulfilled as anything else.

The beautiful thing about both the pagan origins of Christmas, and perhaps even the Victorian resurrection of the celebration, may be the irony that the values at the core of each were not based on fantasy. When seen from this angle, the values have been and still are attainable. The celebration of the return of light is a profound acknowledgment of a cosmic reality - who cannot say that the Sun returning is not something to be deeply grateful for? And the Victorian sensibility of the value of charity is at its root the very essence of being truly human; charitable with emotions, charitable with respect for freedom, charitable with giving to the truly needy what they actually need.

This is the Christmas wish that I have - for the return of light in the world and the practice of charity to our fellow humans to make their brief lives just a bit better.