The One About Christmas

As a mother-to-be, when people find out I don't really "do" Christmas, they feel the need to inform me that once the baby comes, I'll have to get into it. Have to get into it? Why??

"Well, for Santa, of course," they inevitably mention.

"Santa?"

"Ya, what are you going to do about Santa?"

"There is no Santa."

Let me get back to the Santa issue momentarily and run you through a brief list of reasons that I don't celebrate Christmas (because people invariably require it. Apparently "I just don't celebrate it" isn't good enough for people, since I'm not Jewish, Muslim, Hindu, or have some type of horrible Christmas related trauma preventing me from enjoying myself). Let's start with the easy ones.

1. The music. I loathe Christmas music. It wasn't always this way. As a choir geek, I used to love the beautiful melodic sounds of traditional Christmas music, and my family would yearly bop around to Boney M's totally funky Christmas album as we decorated the tree. But after more than two decades of hearing it day in and day out for what now equates to almost two full months out of every year, the simple thought of it makes me want to burrow pencils deep into my ear drums.

2. The tacky decorations. It's like a bad disco music video nightmare. The glitter, the snowflakes, the absolutely-wrong-any-other-time-of-the-year (except for in plaid) pairing of green and red. It's visually abrasive, to say the least.

3. I'm not religious. I don't believe in God, nor do I have any emotional ties to the various "pagan" (read: other) cultures that Christmas co-opted and "borrowed" from.

To this, people usually respond, "Oh, but Christmas isn't just for Christians. It's about peace and love and good will towards your fellow human" (although they usually say "man"). This is where the person asking why I don't like Christmas usually gets into a deeper conversation that they were really bargaining for.

4. I don't believe in Conditional Charity. People who the rest of the year don't care about the poor, the hungry, the disadvantaged suddenly become givers. People who (from my own anecdotal experiences) sometimes even berate the poor, blame them for their circumstances, and avoid generosity, suddenly allow themselves to take on the role of benevolent philanthropist. Some would argue this is a good thing, I disagree. It allows people to forget the rest of the year, to feel as though they've done their duty until next season. The poor doesn't need a turkey dinner one night of the year, they don't need toys or a tree. They need a society that cares about them enough to deal with the systemic issues such that we can address the reasons for poverty, not the symptoms of it. The whole year.

But people don't generally like to hear that one.

5. The waste. The easy waste to point to is the mindless consumerism. To buy crap people don't need because you feel you have to is ridiculous (when I bring up this one, people often say "But I want to." I'm always curious how careful and thoughtful their gifts really are, and how many of them were "Well, hell, I don't know what to buy uncle Tom, I guess he'll like this random-thing-I-found-last-minute well though."). And then there's the wrapping. And the unnecessary dead tree rotting in people's living rooms. And the over eating (I like the occasional feast as much as the next person, but when I hear of people I know having two, three, and sometimes four days of huge meals and constant grazing with various mandatory sectors of their family, I'm never really sure what to say).

So this brings us back to Santa. The final issue I have with Christmas.

For those of you who don't already know, there is no Santa Claus. It's a shocker, I know, considering that all of us can tell you what this man looks like, what he wears, what his job is, who he's married to, and even where he lives (creepy?). It's also a shock considering the great lengths adults, who know full well he isn't real, go to in convincing children that he is.

I've been working with kids for years now. I know they're not as stupid and fragile as a lot of adults would like to think. They have the capacity for complex and creative thought, just like the rest of us. For that reason, I don't believe in lying to them. Period. The end. If I know something isn't true, I won't perpetuate the idea of its truth to my child, all for some kind of bizarre nostalgic projection of my own lost innocence.

Now, none of this is to say that there aren't things I have taken from my experiences with Christmas over the years that I enjoy. I love seeing my family, particularly now that I don't live in the same province as any of them. But I can do that at any time of the year, really, so long as we're all together.

And then there's.... hmmm.... wait, no, I guess it's just that one thing.

Family.

Luckily, I'm close enough with my family that I don't need an excuse to spend time with them, to tell them that I love them and cherish their presence in my life.

That is how I want to raise my child. Knowing that she is always loved, always precious to me. And that we should always love others, always respect them as human beings and want to help them.

And if we want to give her a gift, I want her to know that her father and I were the ones who thoughtfully picked it out, not some imaginary fat man in a red suit. Sorry Santa, you're not taking credit for my presents.