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| Cover of Skipping Christmas: A Novel |
Confined to the house for the past two months
recuperating from surgery to repair a broken hip (yes, repair, not replace. I’m
a minimalist), I’ve had a chance to catch up on a lot of reading. One of the
books I read was John Grisham’s Skipping
Christmas. Grisham is better known for his legal thrillers, but in Skipping Christmas, a story of a couple
who, when their only child joins the Peace Corps and heads off to South America
for a year, decide to forego the hassle and expense of celebrating Christmas
and treat themselves to a winter cruise, he proves that he’s also quite adept
at writing satirical humor.
A short novel – more of a novella actually – takes pokes
at consumerism, materialism, and enforced conformity. It picks apart the whole
Christmas angst, which is often more about selfishness, conformity, peer
pressure, and greed than the celebration of a birth that actually had to have
taken place many months earlier.
Reading this book got me to thinking about my own
rather conflicted relationship with Christmas, and of course, that meant I’d
have to write about it. It’s probably a good thing this happened now, rather
than closer to Christmas. This way, maybe I won’t be labeled a degenerate
Scrooge. Because, believe me, I’m not. I just don’t celebrate Christmas.
My wife does. My children do. And, I’m sure my two
granddaughters, Sammie and Catie, will be taught to celebrate Christmas in a
big way. I sort of gave up on it sometime during my teen years, after I read
somewhere that many of the Yule traditions and practices were actually pagan
rituals that had been rebranded by the Roman emperors in their efforts to
co-opt the barbarian tribes. Even then, though, the fact that most people
seemed more interested in how many and of what value gifts they’d get, and the
efforts to reciprocate in kind, bothered me. I mean, sure it’s nice to be nice
to others, but shouldn’t we do it all year long?
In my mid-twenties, after my first time in Asia, I
adopted the Buddhist philosophy. After that, it didn’t seem right to make a big
deal about a Christian holiday, which I’d not actually made a big deal about
for years anyway.
You’d think that would solve my problems. It didn’t
really. Except for my wife and kids, who are accustomed to my eccentricities,
my friends and relatives viewed my avoidance of the rituals of the Yule season
as, frankly, subversive and anti-Christian. Actually, they were miffed that I
quit buying Christmas gifts. The fact that I gave presents at odd times
throughout the year – birthdays and other events – didn’t mollify them at all.
I could have put up with that; after all, relatives
always find something to carp about. It was the reaction of strangers that
really got to me. I don’t wear a sign that says, ‘I don’t celebrate Christmas,’
but I avoid Christmas office parties and other rituals. Mostly they’re boring
anyway. When this becomes known, some people even have the gall to call me to
task about it. When I was appointed ambassador to Zimbabwe, for instance, I
arrived in November. I informed my staff that, while I would make the garden
area of my residence available for the staff’s annual Christmas party, I didn’t
feel that I could host it. There was an uproar from the local staff, who had
become accustomed to the ambassador paying for their annual party. My
permitting them to use the residence to do their own party was an insult to
them. They finally got over it, but it confirmed what I’d long suspected. For
many people, Christmas is about what you ‘get’ more than it’s about what you ‘give.’
It’s a time when otherwise nice people go crazy buying expensive, useless junk
to impress other people with their ability to waste money on expensive, useless
junk. It’s a time when people send greetings to people they don’t even speak to
for the other eleven months of the year.
Well, this is yet another year that I won’t
celebrate Christmas. At least, not in the way most people think. Instead, I
celebrate it 365 days a year. I try to spread good cheer and love every day. I’m
not big on giving or getting gifts, but I do it when the mood strikes, not at
some pre-appointed time on the calendar.
My greeting, today, tomorrow, and always, is: Peace
on Earth. Goodwill to All.
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