Well, they started earlier than usual this year - there were Christmas lights in the mall today. So I figured I'd post this essay I wrote last year.
N.B.: Gift of Wisdom - a means to provide gifts from the heart - was one of the ideas that precipitated from this essay's train of thought. I thought a personal, motivational gift store was progress. But some called me a hypocrite.
Hypocrite or activist - I'm interested to know what you think.
The Holiday Season
December 5, 1999
Every advertisement in this year's Thanksgiving edition of the Boston Globe was a command to hurry up and spend money for the holidays. It seems worse now than it was last year; it seemed worse last year than the year before that. Out of a glowing television screen, talking heads rattle off expected holiday earnings in their typical monotone. At the same time, tired, poor citizens rattle off expected holiday stress in pathetic protest of the unspoken law that they must buy gifts or be damned. And gradually, baby Jesus and Judah Macabee quietly step out of the limelight so that the almighty Dollar might take its rightful place as the miracle most celebrated for the holidays. It is difficult to imagine that this annual orgy of commerce was once about reverence and love.
The attitude of the American populace toward the holidays is genuinely frightening. Come December, anxious men and women nationwide begin to feel guilty that they have not yet done their required "holiday shopping." Dreading the day they go to the stores, they quickly select an assortment of items to give to every person they know. Resenting every dollar they spend, they try not to think of the fact that most of the things they couldn't afford to buy - but bought anyway - will be put on a shelf and forgotten. Tired and short of funds, they hope that they will receive some satisfying compensation; be it in a kiss, a smile, a big hug, or even a few little words; but these poor, brainwashed pawns of capitalism would never consider that these ethereal gems are the true gifts of the season.
Anyone who has ever attempted to buy something in the last two months of the year will understand what a miserable atmosphere of artificial emotions and trivial gifts is present. After emerging victorious in a bitter struggle for a parking space, one drags himself to the entrance of the store like a condemned man walks to his doom. Walking through the doors of a shopping center at that time of year is like walking through the gates of hell. It is easy to imagine Dante's bitter inscription over the mall's entrance: "All hope abandon, ye who enter here." Within the abyss are throngs of tormented souls, cursed with the charge of buying "that special something" for their loved ones. Red-faced people storm from one store to another like berserk commandos, becoming alternately furious and frustrated as they are told in no uncertain terms that each shop is sold out of special somethings. And when the pandemonium finally ends, it is clear to the wise that the love and the religion have moved even further away from the holidays.
Certainly, the holidays have not always been this way. While gift-giving has for centuries been an accepted component of Christmas, it was once a doux gesture of affection. When the presentation of a gift is done with no intention but to show caring, it is difficult to discern whether it is the giver or the receiver that finds greater pleasure in the exchange. But when a gift is given because a gift must be given, it is almost as difficult to discern whether either subject or object are moved by the gesture at all. Sadly, the tradition of the holidays has been reduced more and more by capitalism. The tradition has remained but its purpose has been culturally abandoned; this has been the demise of many valuable traditions. But though rituals and cultural pretense change, human emotions do not.
Even with my low expectations of American behavior during the holiday season, I am still shocked each year by the level to which these sacred days have been reduced. In the media and on the streets, gaudy solicitations dominate my every vision. My head aches from the endless barrage of insipid drivel about gifts, weary and too numb to continue listening. My heart longs for a time when a holiday meant love and reverence above all. The eyes of the people around me seem to whisper that they wish for the same thing. Have you finished your holiday shopping?
Posts: 1170 | Location: Cambridge, MA | Registered: 08-30-00
It took me a long time to get around to reading this one. lol.
I hate shopping! Right on! I hate holiday shopping even more! I guess you can put me down as one of those people who forget to buy Christmas and birthday gifts, but who wouldn't find anything strange in buying a random person a random gift on a random day.
It does seem that the holiday season is a bit corrupt, but, hey, thats the way of things. Why do we still celebrate Columbus Day? For the three-day weekend, of course. How many adults actually sit around saying to themselves... "now there was a good man, that Christopher Columbus fellow." Slim to none, I'd say.
Quote: "Walking through the doors of a shopping center at that time of year is like walking through the gates of hell. It is easy to imagine Dante's bitter inscription over the mall's entrance: "All hope abandon, ye who enter here." Within the abyss are throngs of tormented souls, cursed with the charge of buying "that special something" for their loved ones. Red-faced people storm from one store to another like berserk commandos, becoming alternately furious and frustrated as they are told in no uncertain terms that each shop is sold out of special somethings. And when the pandemonium finally ends, it is clear to the wise that the love and the religion have moved even further away from the holidays." "My heart longs for a time when a holiday meant love and reverence above all."
A great piece of work, David, sorry it has taken me so long to respond to it. I think this year, 2001, may be different for many people the world over. Though, of course, the commercialism will always remain an inescapable aspect of the Holidays. But, I think the underlying aspects of Love and Reverence are the driving force behind it. Nice writing from what I consider to be a great mind.
Whenever you find yourself on the side of the majority, it is time to pause and reflect~Mark Twain
I know its very very late in the day to wish anyone "Compliments of the Season", but nevertheless... I agree with u 100% about this senseless commercial devaluing of the holiday season, everywhere in the world. I thought I'd post this wonderful story I recently recieved in my daily newsletter from www.chickensoup.com It says much of the same things(in spirit ) u talked about. Hope, everyone who reads it...likes it.
quote: Chocolate-Covered Cherries By Dawn Holt [EDITORS' NOTE: This Christmas letter was sent to friends and family along with a box of chocolate-covered cherries.]
What a terrible way to spend Christmas! My oldest son, Cameron, had been diagnosed with acute myleoblastic leukemia on June 30, 1997. After a harrowing ride in a military helicopter to Walter Reed Hospital, three rounds of horrendous chemotherapy, an excruciating lung resection and a disappointing bone marrow search, now here we were...at Duke University Hospital. Cameron had a cord blood transplant, a last-ditch effort to save his life, on December 4. Now, here it was...Christmas Eve.
A very small room on ward 9200 was a different place to spend Christmas. We had always spent weeks baking cookies. Now the cookies were sent from family and friends because I wanted to spend my time with Cameron, trying to ease the long, tedious hours. He had been in isolation for weeks because he had no immune system, the result of even more chemotherapy and drugs that would hopefully make his new bone marrow engraft. As some presents had arrived in the mail, we opened them immediately...anything to make a bright moment...here or there.
Christmas Eve, 6:00 p.m., was always the magic hour. The time when my family, in Iowa...Wisconsin...California ...or Washington, D.C....all opened our presents at the same time, somehow bringing the family together, even though apart. Cameron's father, stepmother, sister and brother would also be opening presents at their house in Fayetteville, North Carolina. This Christmas, it would just be Cameron and me in the small room with few decorations, since they weren't allowed in the sterile environment.
With the drone of the HEPA filter and the beeping of his six infusion pumps hooked to a catheter in his heart, Cameron waited until 6:00 p.m. exactly. He insisted we follow this small tradition, some semblance of normalcy abandoned six months earlier. I gave him a few presents I had saved, his favorite being a Hug Me Elmo that said "I love you" when you squeezed him. It was over too quickly. Christmas was over. Or so I thought.
Cameron carefully reached over the side of his hospital bed and handed me a small green box. It was wrapped beautifully, obviously by a gift store – perfect edges, a folded piece of ribbon held down with a gold embossed sticker. Surprised, I said, "For me?"
"Of course. It wouldn't be Christmas unless you had something to unwrap from me," he replied.
I was almost speechless. "But how did you get this? Did you ask a nurse to run down to the gift store?"
Cameron leaned back in his bed, and gave me this most devilish smile. "Nope. Yesterday, when you went home for a few hours to take a shower, I sneaked downstairs."
"Cameron! You aren't supposed to leave the floor. You know you are neutropenic. They let you leave the ward?"
"Nope!" His smile was even bigger now. "They weren't looking. I just walked out."
This was no small feat, because Cameron had grown weaker after the cord blood transplant. He could barely walk, and certainly not unassisted. It took every ounce of strength just to cruise the small ward halls, pushing the heavy medication and pain pump IV pole. How could he possibly have made it nine floors to the gift store? "Don't worry, Mom. I wore my mask, and I used the cane. Man, they gave me hell when I got back. I didn't get to sneak back in; they had been looking for me."
I held the box even tighter now. I couldn't look up. I had already started to cry. "Open it! It's not much, but it wouldn't be Christmas if you didn't have something from me to open."
I opened the box of gift-store-wrapped chocolate-covered cherries. "They are your favorite, right?" he asked hopefully.
I finally looked at my poor eighteen-year-old baby, who had begun all this suffering so soon after high school graduation and who taught me so much about what being a family really meant. "Oh...absolutely my favorite!"
Cameron chuckled a little bit. "See, we still have our traditions, even in here."
"Cameron, this is the best present I've ever received, ever," I told him, and I meant every word. "Let's start a new tradition. Every Christmas, let's only give each other a box of chocolate-covered cherries, and we'll reminisce about how we spent Christmas 1997 at Duke University Hospital, battling leukemia, and we'll remember how horrible all of it was and how glad we are that it is finally over." And we made that pact right then and there, sharing the box of chocolate-covered cherries. What a wonderful way to spend Christmas!
Cameron died on March 4, 1998, after two unsuccessful cord blood transplants. He was so brave – never giving in, never giving up. This will be my first Christmas without him. The first Christmas without something from him to unwrap.
This is my gift to you. A box of chocolate-covered cherries, and when you open it I hope it will remind you what the holidays are really about: being with your friends and family, recreating traditions, maybe starting some new ones, but most of all, love.
What a beautiful way to spend Christmas.
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much love, light and laughter, ananya.
*~ Scatter Joy ~* - Emerson
Posts: 5726 | Location: India | Registered: 07-03-01
