Welcome back to day 2 of this... holiday countdown... thingie. Hmm... Christmas...
I'm a big fan of Christmas. Actually, that's not exactly true. I certainly used to be a big-time Christmas booster. When I was a kid. That's hardly unusual, I know. I remember the times when I was younger, the sepia-toned days when the Christmas spirit would assault me in my dreams, driving my excitement levels to positively dangerous levels as soon as Thanksgiving was over.
That's all Thanksgiving felt like to me; a dress rehearsal for the big show. The family got together, ate a lot of food, watched a little television, there were some awkward moments involving various bodily functions and the occasional casual racist remark that caught me off guard, causing me to question whether or not I was adopted (SPOILER: I wasn't). But being a kid, Thanksgiving was missing that special something that set Christmas apart: Presents. And that's why I hated Thanksgiving. It was a cocktease holiday.
I was a little boy, I didn't give a damn about the bonds of family. I just wanted my mother to drain her bank account to buy me prohibitively expensive hunks of semi-articulated plastic. Christmas was like some kind of miracle to me. I ask for a bunch of things, and they magically arrive in beautifully wrapped packages under a tree in the family room on December 25th. Such an amazing thing, and something a kid doesn't really understand.
And parents don't even take credit for this miraculous occurrence. They tell you that some jolly old fat man who lives at the top of the world delivers all of these awesome gifts to every house on Christmas Eve. Santa Claus is a superhero to children. Fuck that, he's more like a deity. Superman doesn't deliver gifts to children all over the world, even though he's certainly capable. He's usually too busy engaging in an endless pissing contest with some bald industrialist suffering from the mother of all superiority complexes.
Santa actually cares enough about you to reward you for your good behavior. And there's proof of his existence nestled under your Christmas tree every year. Not to mention the half eaten cookies and empty milk glass left by the fireplace. So in that respect, Santa Claus is more important to your average child than God. You know Santa Claus exists. As for God, the jury's still out. Kids don't refrain from bad behavior because they're afraid that some vaguely defined religious figure will punish them in the afterlife; they stay on their best behavior because if they don't, then Santa Claus won't give them any gifts.
Millions of kids write this guy letters every year, telling him how good they've been, finding just enough space to squeeze in their modest lists of toys and games that they obviously deserve for not setting their parents on fire for unfairly grounding them one weekend. After all, it's not the kid's fault that his 3rd grade teacher accidentally fell down a flight of stairs. Those orthopedic shoes are notoriously slippery on a freshly-buffed tile floor.
It still stymies me that all of these supposedly good Christian families facilitate the "Santa Claus" myth. They work so hard to convince their children that Santa Claus is very real, sometimes even going so far as to dress up as the man himself, lovingly placing gifts under the tree late at night, in the off chance that their son or daughter wakes up to discover "Santa Claus" in their very own living room.
They never work this hard to trick their children into believing that God is real. I've never heard of a kid waking up on Easter morning to discover three bload-soaked nails resting in his candy basket, right next to the hollow chocolate Easter Bunny. Turning his attention to the crucifix on the wall, he discovers that Jesus has disappeared from the cross, leaving nothing but a bloody streak down the wall, leading up the fireplace.
HE HAS RISEN!!!
Nobody ever does that. Probably because it would turn their children into catatonic nightmare factories.
I think I may have drifted off-point. I was trying to say that as a kid, Christmas was nothing more than an excuse for gluttonous self-gratification. The songs were cute, I loved the T.V. specials, and the decorations were a lovely ditraction, but the presents were the main event.
My family never had a lot of money when I was growing up, and every time I came home from the mall with a new toy was a huge event. But on Christmas, I was rewarded with a cornucopia of gifts. It was an orgy of material goods, and I had Santa to thank for all of it.
I'm not sure exactly when I stopped believing in Santa Claus, but it had to have been around my tenth birthday. I know it wasn't some overnight, earth-shattering revelation. There were no nights spent crying myself to sleep over such a painful betrayal. The truth just made more sense.
 |
| The Real Santa Claus. |
Of course there was no magical being who sneaked into my house every year, a perfect stranger who left me all of these amazing gifts. It was my mother, who worked her fingers to the bone day in and day out, who sacrificed so much every year to buy these amazing gifts for me and my brother. And she never even thought of taking credit for such a selfless act. No, she gave the credit to the ultimate imaginary friend, in an attempt to make my childhood a little more magical.
The presents don't matter so much, these days. I enjoy decorating the Christmas tree. I enjoy traveling around town, looking at all the beautiful displays of light that make the cold nights more cheerful. I enjoy dropping spare change into those Salvation Army buckets in front of the stores. I enjoy spending a little more time with my family on Christmas Day, not taking it for granted. I cherish the people I have in my life, and I remember the people who are gone. I still like unwrapping a few gifts on December 25th, but it's not what really matters.
Somewhere along the line, I guess I grew up and discovered the true meaning of Christmas.
And there it is. Gosh, I feel all warm and fuzzy. Visions of bouyant sugar plums are dancing in my head.
Join me tomorrow for more rambling holiday goodness.
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