I’m really glad that the Christmas season is over. Really.
Every year, I see the insane footage from the Black Friday sales, which mark the official start of the Christmas buying season (also known as 6 pm Thanksgiving). These bargain hunting power shoppers appear downright feral. People have been killed, either for what they managed to get into their baskets or trampled in the rush to get into the stores. It’s pretty vicious.
There are so many reasons, most of which would take a doctoral thesis to cover, but at the very heart is our culture’s over-identification with stuff. We’ve somehow got the notion that if you have the most (or most expensive) stuff then you’ve won something. Or that you’re a better, more powerful, beautiful, skinnier version of yourself. At least that’s what the advertisements need us to believe. It’s why the average American household is over $16,000 in credit card debt. It’s why our landfills are full of shit that will take hundreds, if not thousands, of years to decompose. Personal storage is a $22 billion/year industry - for people who have so much stuff that it will no longer fit in their house.
When you’re a kid, Christmas doesn’t have all these headaches. For me, it was all about family and giving a list to my mama of things I wanted from the Sears catalog. I know, I was seriously lucky. My parents (and grandparents) worked really hard to make sure that my sister and I had wonderful holidays, including an elaborate set up in the living room of our gifts from “Santa”.
I don’t think I appreciated the effort it took to pull that off I had kids of my own. Just like my parents, I initially went in for the big, extravagant blow outs. I remember one Christmas in particular my daughter actually started crying because she was tired of opening presents. On top of that, my kids only played with a few of the toys we bought. I could put the rest in a closet and pull them out throughout the year. They thought we’d actually bought them more new toys!
That’s when I started to re-examine my take on Christmas. I have to admit, my foundation was shook. The way I’d known my entire life just stopped making sense. My husband and I decided that we needed to make some changes. The very next year, we pared the gifts way down. It was funny to realize that it hardly put a dent in the kids’ fun. Ours is a blended family. Each of our children had (at least) two distinct Christmases, plus all the grandparents, aunts and uncles. Gifts all over the place. They hardly needed us to re-create Toys R Us in our living room.
As they got older, and Santa Claus’ true identity was revealed, we stopped buying gifts altogether and just gave them cash. It may seem cold, but I find nothing heartwarming or personal about fighting people at the mall to buy shit. It’s pretty demoralizing, especially when this whole season is supposed to be about family, gratitude and love.
Another thing I didn’t realize when I was a kid: The guilty gift game that adults have to play. Guilt because they got you something and you didn’t get them anything. Or, guilt because their gift to you was way more expensive than what you bought for them. It can drive you insane. Or, my least favorite is trying to buy a gift for a distant relative you might see on Christmas, but you have no idea what they like - but you have to get them something. They have no idea what you’d like either, so you end up exchanging gifts that neither of you like.
Peppermint-coconut scented body spray? Jeez, you really really shouldn’t have. I mean, really.
For the most part, my family and I have agreed to stop exchanging gifts - for the adults. I can’t tell you what a fucking relief that has been. It’s not about the money. Instead of buying gifts for each other, we adopt a family through a program and spend our holiday gift budget on them. It’s totally sobering when you’re buying things for folks and they’re asking for simple things like school supplies or pajamas or blankets. Doing that makes me feel joy. Like I’m living in alignment with the Christmas spirit - which includes helping others - and I don’t mean helping others get a bigger TV.
There’s nothing wrong with giving and receiving nice gifts for Christmas, but for me it was turning into a gift card exchange. It just felt like a race to complete this running list in my head, which included figuring out a reasonable amount to spend on someone you may or may not have any real affection for. Besides - and I may lose my woman card over this - I loathe shopping. It’s not a pastime for me, it’s a chore. Most of what I buy is online. Going into stores…trying on shit…going through racks or bins of crap? That’s hellish.
All I really want for Christmas was the health and safety of my family and friends. I make a good living. I want for very little. Throughout the year, if see something I really like, I just buy it. I don’t need more things. Not things that money can buy anyway.
Don’t get me wrong, I like stuff too, but it’s not everything. It can’t replace the connection that we are all craving.
I’m not shitting on Christmas, at least not in its entirety. Outside of the shopping centers (and connected parking lots), I do notice a kinder, gentler spirit that seems to abound during the holidays. I just wish we could bottle that up and spread it around the entire year. Instead of going into January thinking about how to pay off all the crap we just bought, we would take the memories of the time we spent with those who mean the most to us.
