Why Merry Christmas?
*Underlying Issues Series
Merry Christmas!
I don’t say that as a political statement, or because I am ignorant to our melting pot’s religious and cultural diversity. I say it because I love Christmas, and because I am selfish. Since I spend something like 98% of my time thinking about me, and I am typing within ten feet of a Christmas tree, I have Christmas on my mind. So, Merry Christmas!
For evidence of how ingrained the greeting is in our culture, look at how outdated the greeting is itself. We don’t say, “Merry birthday,” or, “Have a merry weekend.” We don’t ask people if they had a, “merry vacation,” or a, “merry time at the concert.” My greeting isn’t meant to offend people outside the majority. It’s what I know to say this time of year. And in this particular case with cheery intent, I’m just too selfish to consider exerting effort otherwise.
The greeting isn’t the only obsolete aspect of our Christmas culture. How about that Christmas tree jive? As our culture acknowledges or denies climate change to varying degrees, we almost universally embrace removing hundreds of millions of carbon dioxide filters from our environment every December. Or maybe you prefer a petroleum-based idol to worship in the corner of your living room. Listen, this is not a rant about global warming. If you are only still reading so you can decide if I am on your team, or if you should hate me, I am afraid I will disappoint. There is no call-to-action here for you to ignore or celebrate. I am merely pointing to our human absurdity. Just like as the owner of two cats I nonetheless don’t understand why we invite canines and felines into our homes to plant their pucker holes on our eating and sitting surfaces, I don’t understand the Christmas tree. I have one. Every year. In fact, “Christmas Tree Day” is my favorite day of the year. It is just better when I don’t think about it too much. Unfortunately for me, obsessive fixation does not have an opt-out button.
I am blessed to live in Colorado where we can buy a $20 permit from the National Forest Service that allows my family to trudge into the mountains and choose from the millions of scrawny and struggling drought-inflicted evergreens practically begging the people wandering through the forest with saws to put them out of their collective misery. I don’t know where pop-up Christmas tree lots, or the grocery stores, get their trees, but I have never seen one of those full and vibrant models in twenty years of tree hunting in the Buffalo Creek cutting area of the Pike National Forest.
But it’s not about the tree. Not really. It is about the experience. When our kids were babies, it was about unbundling their fourteen layers to change a dirty diaper on a 9 degree rock. As they aged, it was about a lost glove not reported until their fingers were frostbitten, or bounding down a mountain slope with glee only to insist on being carried back up because they had never been more tired in their entire little lives. I’ll never forget the Christmas Tree Day when we parked Baby Joey in his little blue sled under a tree to protect him from the wind only to have a limb full of snow unload and bury our child, sled and all. It was a funny sight, and his exasperated reaction when dug out his cute little face was priceless. But it should go without saying that extracting Joey from that drift was the end of that particular Christmas Tree Day.
Our kids are now older. They still love the ritual tree murder ceremony, but they have outgrown parental influence on their decision making. One of them got in the car this year wearing shorts, sneakers and a hoodie. “My blood flows faster than your old-person blood,” was the response I received to my scornful stare of disapproval. He was right. He was fine. But just looking at him brought me a shiver as we trudged through ten inches of crust-covered powder. He would have self-amputated a frost-bitten leg with our rusty tree saw before he complained.
The snow was too dry for packing into snowballs, but we did have pine-cone wars. We climbed rock outcrops with death-defying stupidity disguised as bravery. We stopped and smiled reluctantly for the annual family picture. We made nature our bathroom as we left our mark on trees or under bushes. And we argued. Oh how we argued. Every member of the Salis Six was convinced that they had found the perfect pine to drag home to slowly rot in the front window. Given the relative inadequacy of the choices, you might expect an atmosphere of reluctant acceptance. But no. We argued about the tree like we would argue over green-bean casserole or kale salad if they were the only two choices for Christmas dinner. I don’t remember which member of my family cajoled a tenuous majority this year. As I now type while looking at the tree, I can’t believe I am related to anyone with the audacity to put up a fight for this stick with a dozen fuzzy twigs. We could fashion a sturdier tree with chopsticks and pipe cleaners. Thankfully we have no shortage of homemade ornaments crafted from construction paper and egg cartons. A dozen traditional glass ornaments would bring this droopy sapling to the floor.
Scrawny or not, the once useful evergreen now sits browning slowly next to the fireplace. Before we negotiated it to become the centerpiece of our secular worship, it was home to woodland creatures providing protection from harsh weather and hungry winter predators. Now it struggles under the weight of a little drummer boy made from glued popsicle sticks. In a couple of weeks, we will prop it between two trash cans in the alley with the reverence of a discarded turkey carcass. From awe-inspiring to afterthought. The Christmas tree is the OG of cancel culture.
Even with its many cultural peculiarities, I cling to the nostalgia of Christmas for its promise of peaceful contentment. I don’t have the bandwidth to get into my hatred for the commercial excesses of the season. It is hard for me to adequately express the relief I felt when Saturday Night Live finally mocked the Lexus December to Remember Sales Event – an infected rash on my consciousness for well over a decade. As my wife reminds me, I am too cheap to buy the big red bow, so the idea of a car as a Christmas present grinds my wheels of logic to an unlubricated, squealing seizure.
While I am a very spiritual person, the origin of the celebration is not why it means so much to me, either. After years of reminding kids to focus on Jesus rather than greed, it is a bit self-perplexing to consider that neither drives my version of Christmas spirit. Born and raised Christian, I feel overwhelming shame typing this paragraph. But if I’m being honest, there is no way that the nativity story would captivate me for 25 days or so the way Christmas does. How many Sundays between Thanksgiving and Christmas? Jesus rises on the priority list those days. He’s a cool dude. I’m thumb’s-up for love. Ugh. It’s hard to type while staring sheepishly at my feet. But I’d rather be authentic than proud.
So if Christmas isn’t about Jesus or Santa for me, what is the focus of my fixation? Why participate in unnecessary deforestation, drink thick and sugary milk, put plastic crap and canned pickled fish in socks, and get up entirely too early on a vacation day even though my kids have otherwise acquired a skill for sleeping until noon? It’s not the creepy Elf on a Shelf for me. It’s not that department store Mariah Carey song that should be outlawed. Why? Why Christmas?
Christmas takes a lot of work. We have to clink glasses with coworkers and neighbors while engaging in painful small talk. We have to hang lights and wrap boxes. We have to put a bow on work responsibilities for the year. We have to make cookies and lick envelopes and travel by air and land to visit genetically similar people with whom to argue and feel claustrophobic frustration. Why? Why do we do it all? Is it just for an excuse to sit around in our pajamas for a whole day?
Why don’t we just sit around in our pajamas for a whole day without the weeks of preamble?
Our brains are particularly susceptible to certain behavioral and calendar-inspired concoctions. A little dash of hope. A clinging to childhood wonderment. A smidge of desperation to retreat from overwhelm. A sprig of prescribed kindness. Set the timer for December 25th, and hope we followed the recipe with care so it doesn’t dry out or fall in the oven or stay doughy in the middle.
I had better get it right, because January and February are cold and dark and about as festive as the aforementioned kale salad.
Why Christmas? Why do I care? Why do I try? I could fill a notebook with both sides of a pros and cons list. A rogue unvacuumable pine needle digging into the cold arch of a bare foot in mid January surely makes the list. My inability to appreciate the lingering stillness after the festive stillness ends surely gives me fodder for fixation. If it’s not Jesus or Santa, then why Christmas? Why do I love it so much? Why am I sad when it’s over? What’s the solution to this annual conundrum of anxiety and stress all for the promise of a single whole day with a sparsely populated inbox I can almost assuredly delete without opening? Why?
Maybe, “Why Christmas?” isn’t the right question on which to fixate. Maybe the real question is, given the consequences caused by hundreds of millions of festive participants in the annual forest gang rape, why NOT Arbor Day?
Following the logic of Christmas, maybe I’ll decorate a chainsaw in the corner of my living room. Merry Arbor Day?
Nah. That’s just not in my old-person blood.
Maybe I’ll never know why, but I’m gonna stick with wishing you a Merry Christmas!
*This essay is from the “Underlying Issues Series.” Just because I have moved past alcohol doesn’t mean I don’t have lots of room for growth, and lots of underlying issues to explore. If you are down with this blend of authenticity and self deprecation, please subscribe. If you don’t need help finding sobriety, you can ignore all the alcoholism stuff, and just read about my underlying issues that led to the addiction.