Dereligification

     I used to ignore Christmas. With no religion, a fractured family, deeply-ingrained anti-social tendencies, and a steadfast and principled opposition to gift-giving and -getting as being inefficient transfers of resources designed only to enrich the retail sector of our economy, ignoring Christmas was the only thing to do.

     Then I had kids.

     I no longer ignore Christmas. With kids, apparently, that isn’t an option. So now I tolerate visits from my fractured family, I pretend for a few days that I’m not as anti-social as I am, and I do my part to enrich the retail sector. You’ll even see some bright blinking lights hanging from the eaves of my house.

     But I draw the line at religion. I’m not going to pretend I believe something I don’t. And that poses a problem because, as anyone who’s watched the Peanuts Christmas special knows, the “true” meaning of Christmas isn’t the groovy dancing, the bright blinking lights or even the aluminum trees. No, as Linus teaches, the true meaning of Christmas is to celebrate the birth of Jesus. And that has no meaning for me.

     So, even if I celebrate Christmas in a half-assed going-through-the-motions non-denominational kind of way, I’m still celebrating, at the most fundamental level, the birth of Jesus. That doesn’t sit right with me. Not so much because I have anything against anyone celebrating that birthday – if it makes you happy, it makes me happy – but because I feel like a hypocrite going through those motions.

     I could reject the whole religious side of Christmas, but I fear that would just force me into embracing the flipside: crass consumerism. Linus and I are of one mind there.

     Is there a third way?

     I suppose Festivus may be a solution. It is, after all, for the rest of us. But Festivus is so different from a traditional Christmas I’d need my family to play along. Substituting an aluminum Festivus pole for a Christmas tree?  Airing of the grievances? Wrestling the head of household to the ground? It has promise, but I don’t think they’ll go for it.

     I think the only way out of my bind is to work within existing Christmas traditions, but squeeze the religion out of them. So, for instance, we will have a Christmas tree and wreath, but I will tell myself those evergreens are in our house not to celebrate Jesus’s birthday, but to celebrate the return of spring at a time when everything else is brown. Similarly, we will still hang mistletoe, but any kissing that occurs will not be a celebration of Jesus, it will be a celebration of, say, fertility. And I see no reason to pull the yule log out of the fireplace. As we watch it burn, its bright warm glow will not be a reflection of Jesus’s birth, it will instead remind me that, with the recent winter solstice, these darkest of days are now getting longer, and soon we will be basking in the sun’s warmth again.

     The more I think of it, the more I think this dereligification approach has a lot of merit. Already I’m feeling much better about this holiday season. I will celebrate in silence, though, as I wouldn’t want my Christian friends thinking I was misappropriating their traditions and twisting them to my own ends. They might think that was sacrilegious, and I wouldn’t want to offend them on this, their special day.

Comments

[George]

I suppose I'm totally without integrity since I simply don't worry too much about the extreme differences between my beliefs and the beliefs of those celebrating the true meaning of Christmas. I go to church and sing with them enjoying their "fellowship" in my own way. Very seldom am I challenged on what my actual beliefs are and when I am I resort to the idea of "a personal relationship with Jesus Christ" and my feeling that it is so personal as to be private and not open to discussion. Perhaps disingenuousness has been incarnated in me. In general I've not found it necessary to "dereligify" any historical religious holiday, Christmas, Easter St Valentine's Day nor St Patrick's Day to name a few. Who knows perhaps in time Christmas and Easter will take on the same tone as St Valentine's and St Patrick's Days. I am just a visitor here marveling at the natives and their customs. As long as I don't push them they don't seem inclined to push me, they all seem to be quite happy with my inquisitive tourist approach. I'm certainly happy with it.

[robert]

If you think the birth of Jesus is the meaning of Christmas "at the most fundamental level", perhaps you need to dig a little deeper. The pre-Christian societies of northern Europe and the British Isles celebrated the winter solstice long before the Jesus myth gained currency. Christianity was grafted onto a classic tradition, broadening its significance by linking humans to the Hebrew sky-god through the birth of Jesus.

If I remember correctly, you have a religious background from childhood. If you have a history of having had to pretend to believe stories that are obviously incredible, the dereligification project seems pretty sensible. But I would argue that the real foundations of Christmas are the ideas the Christ story and the Christmas traditions stand for - redemption, connectedness, grace, the rebirth of body and spirit in a new solar cycle, thankfulness for the comforts of family and the earth's bounty - and that you show more literal-minded friends no disrespect by enjoying those things without putting too much weight on the particulars of the story.

Merry Christmas to you - and your Christian friends.

[MindSpin]

I myself have decorated this very day a large green cat toy now under systematic attack by the resident adolescent cat, one Orange Stripey Dude, who has his own opinions about the reason for the season. Who am I to argue? My job is clearly to pick up the bows and the unbreakable ornaments and put them back up again for the next round.

[AQ]

Blog! We miss you!

[Marvin]

Well, there's always Hogswatch....