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Existential Holidays For Dummies
Dec. 26th, 2002 08:04 am
Hey there, all...
After two whole days of doing absolutely nothing (well, OK, I wrapped presents on the 24th), I have to go back into work today. Oh, it shouldn't be too bad at all, actually....but kickstarting into productivity is like cold-starting your car....it makes you a wee bit grumbly.
So Christmas 2002 has come and gone, and this is kind of the first one since I've started celebrating the Holidays (about two or three years ago) that I didn't consciously try to make a big deal out of it. It was nice to just be lazy, but at the same time...
It always depresses me when people make Christmas out to be 'no big thing' or when people go on and on about how they just *hate* the holidays and everything about it. People keep relegating Christmas to just some Christian holiday that's not even religious anymore but designed to milk as much money out of people as possible. While some people, even a lot of people, do make Christmas out to be a capitalist holiday, that's no reason to make it that way for you. Everything is just what you make of it, and the holidays don't have to be anything you don't want them to be.
This is what I don't understand. Why are people so hung up about the bad aspects of Christmas, what other people have let unbalance do to the holidays? Yes, bad things may have happened around this time (including, supposedly, some guy being nailed on a cross just for telling people to stop being assholes), but *you* have control of *your* holiday *this* year, and you can make it rock as much as you can. You just have to have the attitude and drive.
Christmas/Chanukah/Ramadan/Yule/Solstice/Saturnalia/Kwanzaa all happen around the same exact time of year. All of them have come to celebrate the idea of friends and family, of community, and charity towards the folks who don't have either for various reasons. Yes, you *should* be doing that year-round, and if you are good for you. But this time of year, people are just...spontaneously thoughtful in ways that normally people don't think is possible. It's a beautiful thing, and until we figure out ways to make it happen year-round, we should foster the 'Christmas spirit' as much as possible.
Anyway, things are groovy otherwise. The rest of this year, for me, is a really great time for inflection about ways I've changed over the past year. The odd thing is, I don't even remember what I did for New Year's 2002. Weird.
After two whole days of doing absolutely nothing (well, OK, I wrapped presents on the 24th), I have to go back into work today. Oh, it shouldn't be too bad at all, actually....but kickstarting into productivity is like cold-starting your car....it makes you a wee bit grumbly.
So Christmas 2002 has come and gone, and this is kind of the first one since I've started celebrating the Holidays (about two or three years ago) that I didn't consciously try to make a big deal out of it. It was nice to just be lazy, but at the same time...
It always depresses me when people make Christmas out to be 'no big thing' or when people go on and on about how they just *hate* the holidays and everything about it. People keep relegating Christmas to just some Christian holiday that's not even religious anymore but designed to milk as much money out of people as possible. While some people, even a lot of people, do make Christmas out to be a capitalist holiday, that's no reason to make it that way for you. Everything is just what you make of it, and the holidays don't have to be anything you don't want them to be.
This is what I don't understand. Why are people so hung up about the bad aspects of Christmas, what other people have let unbalance do to the holidays? Yes, bad things may have happened around this time (including, supposedly, some guy being nailed on a cross just for telling people to stop being assholes), but *you* have control of *your* holiday *this* year, and you can make it rock as much as you can. You just have to have the attitude and drive.
Christmas/Chanukah/Ramadan/Yule/Solstice/Saturnalia/Kwanzaa all happen around the same exact time of year. All of them have come to celebrate the idea of friends and family, of community, and charity towards the folks who don't have either for various reasons. Yes, you *should* be doing that year-round, and if you are good for you. But this time of year, people are just...spontaneously thoughtful in ways that normally people don't think is possible. It's a beautiful thing, and until we figure out ways to make it happen year-round, we should foster the 'Christmas spirit' as much as possible.
Anyway, things are groovy otherwise. The rest of this year, for me, is a really great time for inflection about ways I've changed over the past year. The odd thing is, I don't even remember what I did for New Year's 2002. Weird.
