Happy Christmas, War is Over
As you read this, Christmas has probably already passed. I know how boring it is to read about Christmas in January, or February, or July even. Christmas is not high on most people's priority list at any time of the year other than at Christmas in fact. Nevertheless, as i write this article, it is the 23rd of December and everybody seems to be full of the Christmas spirit. Ho ho ho!
It's a funny old thing though, isn't it? I am not a Christian as you know, and i have a feeling that most people in this country are not Christians. To me, Christmas is a Christian festival, right? Maybe not. A colleague of mine at work is a muslim, and comes from an extended muslim family. I told her i didn't celebrate Christmas as i wasn't Christian and she said she didn't celebrate it either... but that it wouldn't be the same without a Christmas dinner with the family! Earlier today i was buying a packet sandwich in a plastic box and the guy behind the counter (a middle Asian chap, don't get me wrong but i think it's more likely he would have been Muslim, Hindu or atheist, in that order, than that he would have been a Christian) wished me a happy Christmas! Why? What makes dozens of people i hardly (or in some cases don't at all) know want to wish me a happy Christmas?
Don't get me wrong here, i know you're probably thinking what a Scrooge i am and how i am one of those sour bah-humbugging types but you would be well wrong there. I do have a little bit of animosity toward Christmas purely because i feel it is forced upon me. I never heard the word 'Solstice' once this weekend for instance (it was the winter Solstice), and nobody has mentioned Hannukah within my hearing so far. That aside however i like the thing about how people try to be nice to each other a bit, even if it's just mumbling 'happy Christmas' at strangers or singing carols (or playing them on a trumpet, saxophone, accordian, violin or tuba) in a public place in an attempt to collect spare change (ocassionally for charity even!). One thing i am a little dubious about is how everybody pigs out so much and gets so pissed during the festive season that their inevitable return to work in sludgy old January leaves them grousing and bitching at each other again as if it were all a lovely dream they were forced to wake up from too early.
For Christmas this year (2002) it seems like George W. Bush will finally deliver the middle Eastern war we expected in the mid 1990s. The papers are full of how Saddam Hussein wants to cooperate in every way and how Bush thinks that having a war is a good way of making sure they cooperate regardless of what they say. Goodwill to all men et cetera. Anyway amidst this the UK government has told us we might be under a terrorist attack this Christmas so we should all be very afraid, sorry vigilant. No wonder the normal people huddle together singing carols and mumbling to strangers.
The Red Cross (yes, the charity with a Christian cross in their logo) have decided that displaying Christmas trees and other Christian symbols in their shops will not be allowed this year in case it offends muslims, which is odd since the Christmas tree is a pagan symbol in the first place. And to be honest, a jewish or muslim symbol does not offend me, so why a Christmas tree might offend a muslim i don't know.
This all adds up to more confusion for me. What is Christmas? I heard on Family Fortunes yesterday that presents were more closely associated in people's minds with Christmas than any other thing! Presents? Is that why they are wishing me happy Christmas in the streets? Are they wishing me good luck in what presents i receive? And yet there seems to be an upturn in the amount of Christian media too, so clearly they are trying to get their pound of flesh as well. Even the agnostic media are turning out documentaries and articles about such subjects as how artists have portrayed Jesus over the centuries and whether Mary was a virgin or not. My flatmates seem to put fairy lights and food very high on their christmas list. To their credit a wicker cross and a tapestry of the virgin Maria make up part of this year's adornments.
Even old Saint Nick is confused these days! He wears a red coat and so on? I heard that these togs were first put on him by Coca Cola in the early 20th century as part of an advertising drive! And the way everybody refers to him as Father Christmas would make the real Father Christmas turn in his grave, if he were dead (i gather he is part of a traditional morris dance, but I think there is much more to the story than that. He's not Saint Nicholas though, that's for sure). Amusingly more than one person has confused Saint Nick with Old Nick (short for Nicodemus, not Nicholas) a term generally used by christians to mean the devil!
So at the end of it all I am more confused about Christmas than ever. Most religions and cultures have a festival at this time of year, to drum the old year out and the new one in at this time of regeneration, and maybe it's this instinctual feeling that makes so many non Christians latch onto Christmas. Maybe Christianity really does just have the best PR machine in this part of the world! I don't know though. It might be interesting to see how people's perceptions of Christmas change over the coming decades.
"Opened Can Of Words" by Chris Frofy
Solstice at the Ring of Brodgar