Looming Holidays and ReThinking Tradition
So I was thinking today that, being the end of October, the Christmas spirit is going to quickly begin being shoved down our throats. Now that my second Christmas season of not working in the mall is looming in the near future, I feel like I've had enough time to recollect my thoughts and reevaluate the way I look at the holiday season.
After sacrificing all the joy I once got out of Christmas as a child by slaving away in Christmas Central HELL EVERY YEAR from the age of 16 to 25, I got to be very disgusted and cynical about the whole ordeal.
For years I witnessed first hand the kind of greed and materialism and thoughtless obligation that Christmas has become for so many in our society....people shopping for gifts during Christmas can be some of the rudest, most impatient, put out, irritable people on the planet. Of course their intentions are good, but I think people get so distracted by the BUYING part that the warm and fuzzy underlying Disney theme of it all gets pretty much overshadowed.
Shelling out tons of money, racking up credit card debt out the ass, dealing with crowds and screaming children and overcrowded parking lots and long lines...I've been so turned off by the whole thing~ traumatized if you will~ that for the past few years I've just made my gifts and avoided the whole thing outside of my comfort bubble.
I got to thinking for awhile that my gifts weren't good enough for my loved ones~ painted wooden boxes and picture frames and random stuff like that...but the more I think about it, the more I feel like I have been programmed somehow to feel like I am not showing the love my family deserves by not buying them expensive gifts....programmed by the television and really good marketers and advertisers.
The older I get, the less material things I desire. Taylor and have always talked about how when we have kids we are going to make sure that they aren't just stuffed silly with gifts without really ever really having to understand what it's all about or really experience truly giving back to people who need things and who don't have the same privilege of getting material pleasures.
I believe that when the time comes, we will have more than enough family members spoiling our kids and we, as parents, want to leave that area to them and concentrate on building our own traditions and values and instilling the importance of giving and kindness and sharing.
We plan to de-emphasize the concept of GETTING and focus mostly on Christmas time as a season of GIVING.
Then we had to decide, to us personally, what IS it really all about? Taylor was raised in a Christian household with all the Jesus/Church bells and whistles~ so it's very much religious for that side of the family.
My family didn't get so much into the religious aspect, but rather our holiday tradition has always been focused on the family gathering (as is with all families I am sure, but since we never really got into the religious part Christmas time to me always meant celebrating love for my family and friends, not really so much Jesus).
And both of us are fortunate to have been raised having been given so much at Christmas time~ we made Christmas lists and always got our share of presents...probably more than a lot of kids did. We have been very lucky.
So where does that leave us? I would like to think that I can take my years of Christmas "elfing" in the mall and turn my experience into something positive somehow...Maybe since I've really witnessed the ugly reality of what the season has turned into (buy buy buy consume consume consume...shower your children with so many gifts that they pass out under the tree, comatose from the GETTING...me me me me....) I can try to recycle my negative energy into something positive that can contribute to a greater good.
I remember reading as a kid reading in a novel, probably LITTLE WOMEN or something, where the character got a PEAR, a penny and a hand made lace handkerchief in her Christmas stocking. I remember thinking, "That's IT?"
And the character was so happy about it. I couldn't grasp at the time any symbolic relevance to that kind of gift then, but I remember that now and how I felt and it's like a light bulb has gone off.
We plan to, every year, rather than buy gifts for one another (with the exception of maybe one or two small things) have the kids pick out gifts for underprivileged children and/or do something to help a family in need.
Lately, I have been thinking about changing up Christmas traditions some more, and I feel like I don't have to wait until we have kids to start that tradition. This is something that my friends/family and I could start doing NOW, that way the tradition has already begun before kids are even in the picture.
We all have so much really~ I have so much that I find myself shoving shit into the garage and taking carloads of stuff to Goodwill. I personally don't want any more STUFF. I get enough stuff for myself throughout the year.
