imagined-community

Hurrah Hurrah. Oh Happy New Year. Finally, I can breathe again; my annual holiday trip to Florida is over. As always, after a few days with my controlling mom I returned to the Northeast angry and frustrated, disappointed with myself, exhausted, depressed, and all too acutely aware of how my least favorite ways of interacting with people were born in my relationship with my mother. On the positive side, I often responded to my mother as I would to any other person (centered, kind and detached) rather than in one of my mom communication styles: the know it all or the withdrawn teen.

Florida itself was a trip. Mom lives in one of those planned retirement communities where everyone drives around in a golf cart. I think the minimum age to live in the golf cart community is 55. Whenever two people under the age of 55 pass each other on the street it is customary for both persons to gently nod their head and make some companionable “You too, huh” eye contact. The “you too,” signifying something like, “You’ve got relatives living here? Yeah, me too.” I personally think there is something fundamentally bizarre, like inbreeding, about any place that is defined by a single age group, be it high school or a retirement community (at least the university has graduate and non-traditional students). But I suppose these holding tanks, I mean communities, are easy and fun. Though every time a golf cart sped by I swear I heard the voice of Rod Sterling intone, “your moving into a land of both shadow and substance…you’ve just crossed over into the twilight zone.”

Mom

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Maybe, just maybe, I can survive the next two months if I go see “What Would Jesus Buy?” The documentary looks hilarious! Directed by Morgan Spurlock (Super Size Me) and Rob VanAlkemade, “What Would Jesus Buy” did the festival circuit during the spring and summer and will be hitting theaters on November 16th (opening at the the Cinema Village Theater in New York).

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The first week of November I noticed wreaths hanging on some of the city lamp posts in Somerville. I felt irritated and then forgot about it. Today, however, I couldn’t avoid the arrival of the Christmas season: wreaths for sale outside Shaws, rows of Xmas crap in CVS, and Christmas chotchke in Pier One. In grinchy disgust I decided then and there to boycott Christmas 2007.

Now, lest you think I am being impulsive, this will not be the first Xmas I have boycotted. In fact, I once boycotted Christmas for six years in a row. If you look at my list of Christmas Pros & Cons, I think you’ll see that the Cons win out…

Pros

1. Christmas is a holiday that celebrates giving. Very cool. I like giving gifts; I like that there is a holiday that encourages people to remember that giving is just as important as receiving.
2. Lite Brite Nights. Snow & colored lights are entrancing. Cities and towns all decked out in lights for the month of December is a visual treat.
3. The Grinch. “The Grinch that Stole Christmas” is one of my favorite TV shows, ever. The Grinch, Max the Dog, and Cindy Lou Who, I’ve got a little of each of them in me. Maybe many of you feel the same. Hence the genius of the story.
4. Christmas music. I love Christmas music. Why? Because December is the only month of the year when the airwaves are filled with songs of hope, joy, peace, faith, gratitude, love of family, and forgiveness. Yeah, Christmas music is banal and uncomplicated. A descent into childhood nostalgia. Still, it’s nice to go shopping and not have to listen to “Gimme More” for a while (though I do like that song).

Cons

1. Christmas Debt. This from the UK (after Xmas 2006):
   

   Excessive Christmas spending has pushed thousands more people towards insolvency following a record year for debt.

   Almost 30,000 people will become insolvent in the first three months of this year, according to financial advisors Grant Thornton. Of those, a third - 10,000 people - will go bankrupt or enter an individual voluntary arrangement (IVA) before April as a result of seasonal overspending…

   Mike Gerrard, head of Grant Thornton’s personal insolvency practice, said: “Last year, during the period straight after Christmas, when most bills started to hit the doormat, we witnessed the highest ever amount of people going into personal insolvency.

2. Christmas Shopping. Need I say more? The nightmare of the endless advertising, packed shopping malls, streets, and parking lots along with the ill-tempered shoppers and cashiers. Ugh.
3. Holiday Specials. Other than the Grinch most of what happens on TV for Xmas is awful. A blog post from Whatever on The Ten Least Successful Holiday Specials of All Time highlights just a few of the bombs the holiday has birthed. Think I’m exaggerating? See if you can make it through this 5-minute clip of the two-hour Star Wars holiday special from 1978. I couldn’t.
   
4. Weight Gain. Researchers say that a person of average weight will gain 1 pound from Thanksgiving to New Years. But people who are already overweight will gain 5 pounds. I read that we are a nation worried about obesity. Well Christmas ain’t helping matters.
5. Stupid Things Said & Done at Holiday Parties. Oh the carnage I have seen. And those post-party stories never die.
6. Family Quarrels. There is such a burden of expectation on Christmas to be THE time when everyone in the family feels connected to one another. It is a time when we are all supposed to be feeling our familyness. As if at Christmas the older brother that never listens will miraculously start listening; the alcoholic aunt will have a thoughtful, sober conversation; the self-centered uncle with think of others; the argumentative cousin will put down the sword; and the lost child will finally call. When overblown expectations for family harmony collide with reality, Christmas can turn into a heavy, quarrelsome day.
7. Jesus. My unbelief in everything that surrounds the Godification of Jesus is a hard one for me to explain because it forces me to state what sounds crazy to most people as well as ends up alienating me from just about everyone. But hey, this is honesty month. In a nutshell, as a child I had a personal relationship with God that led me to understand God as a single entity. When I was 9 and it was time to take First Communion – the first time you take the body and blood of Christ and become one with Christ (I was raised Catholic) — I refused. My reason for refusing communion hasn’t changed in all these years. Since the whole point of Christmas is to celebrate God immanent in the world as Jesus, if you don’t believe that Jesus is God the Son, it’s kind of hard not to feel disconnected from the meaning behind all the eggnog and mistletoe.

Of course, I will still be making the trip to Florida on December 24. Regardless of how I feel about Christmas, I do like setting aside time to visit with my mom in her little house outside of Orlando (near that place where Christmas has a Magic Kingdom).

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