Happy Holidays

Our house is like a Christmas tree that doesn’t know when Christmas is. Every year, small festive additions go up, and never come down.

We’re not big on holidays. Most occasions warrant a phone call to the grandparents, maybe something special for dinner but nothing exorbitant, nothing religious and nothing that marks the date as anything more than a number on a calendar.

Pop culture would have me believe that these special days are a time for family, love, generosity… plus other virtues, but I don’t think we need to allocate days to celebrate these things. Designating a day for romance and a day for family, these things become nothing more than a chore, and after the first few years of it, most people end up dreading them.

I think Christmas and birthdays have given me the idea that friends only need presents twice a year. Family only needs me to be extra nice a few days of the year. These small acts of redemption are good enough, it feels. And because these virtues are not what we tend to practice everyday, those few holidays are seen as the reason why we should be nice or giving or affectionate.

”Give money to the man on the street, why? Because it’s Christmas.”

or

” Give us that! Deagol my love.”
“Why?”
“Because it’s my birthday and I wants it.”

Holidays told Smeagol that murder was an okay thing to do as long as it was his birthday (even if this isn’t exactly true, I’m convinced it made the task easier to justify). Holidays tell me that I’m a good person if I’m extra nice once a year in December. I should be nice because Christmastime is supposed to be nice, not because niceness is a admirable quality to possess. Children are told that if they are nice, they will get toys. There’s some first-rate intrinsic motivation for you. I hate to over-cynicise, but it gives parents the leeway to say, “I’m not buying you that, it’s three months until Christmas, ask me then.”

However, the things I enjoy about Hallmark* holidays are that they do remind people of the good things in life, even if the reasoning is shot. Movies like Love Actually and the Scrubs episode at Christmas still give me warm fuzzies, and watching happy people celebrate is never to be scorned.

Christmastime seems to have an enhancing effect. It brings out the ‘extra’ in all of us, whether good or bad. Good things seem better at Christmas, bad things feel much worse. It is then that we have a clearly defined image of how life ’should be’. Happy.

As long as these ‘pros’ exist, I consider our holidays to be something worth celebrating. But it shouldn’t mean that we never celebrate in between allocated days, nor should it make us feel obligated or guilty. The big pro for me is the aura that they create, when we really know what we want and it takes nothing more than a few kind words, hugs, kisses, friends or strangers to achieve it.

(*Incidentally, I’ve always wondered why Christmas cards only say ‘Merry Christmas’ or ‘Happy Holidays’, and birthday greetings are ‘Have a great day!’. I always feel like I should at least say, “Have a great year!”, or how about even a “great life”. But I guess getting that message annually gets tiring.)