Christmas is Bullshit

And Other Musings of an Ex-Jehovah’s Witness

It was during one of those annual gingerbread-making activities that seemed to be a national requirement in order to finish grade school. I was partnered up with a girl named Amber, who sucked her middle and ring finger as if they were dipped in grape jelly. She grossed me out. Her enthusiasm about Santa Claus grossed me out.

My parents were Jehovah’s Witnesses. I was on the fence about religion (at 7 years old) but I believed what my parents told me about the basics. Santa Claus sounded like a set up anyway. So when Amber happily and with a sing-songy voice told me that she’d been good all year and just knew Santa Clause was going to bring her exactly what she asked him for when she met him at the mall, I felt the click-clack of my little verbal shot gun cocking into position.

“Your Daddy is Santa Clause, you dummy.”

“What?”

“You really think your parents would let some stranger come into your house in the middle of the night? Do you even have a chimney?”

Mental bubbles were popping left and right.

“It’s magic.”

“No it’s not. It’s a lie. Santa Clause is made up. You’re parents buy you all that stuff. I can’t believe you fell for that. Can you pass the Red Hots?”

I dropped the mic, feeling like I had liberated a P.O.W. from certain death. But instead I had just made the holiday season a little less merry for Amber and her poor unknowing folks that day.

I’m not one of those people who thinks holidays are pointless. After my parents divorced and my mom left the Kingdom Hall and re-initiated seasonal tradition — I saw the immense value in all of it. Seeing all of my family on the same day, sitting at the same, abundant table, the winter elements beating against the window panes. Knowing despite the year, the distance, the business of life — we would end up there again in 12 months time. The forgiveness of the holidays, the acceptance of it all. That’s what I grew to love about it.

But ultimately Christmas is actual bullshit.

I could never buy into it. I asked politely for people to please donate to a charity of their choice in my name, or give towards my son’s college fund instead of asking me that lame ass question…

What do you want for Christmas this year?

Nothing. If nothing comes to mind for you, I certainly won’t search my inner desires so you can find some gadget on Black Friday and degrade your human essence rummaging through a bin of goods just so I can feel like I matter on Christmas morning. I would much rather you just bring the mashed potatoes on time so we don’t have to microwave them this year again. Because mashed potatoes taste foul when they’ve been microwaved.

The thing about Christmas I never quite understood was how many people it seems to depress. I overhear breathy grumblings in line at the grocery store and while dropping off my son at preschool — people are talking about how much they dread the holidays. They say it with a smile, as if dreading an entire three months of your life is an acceptable thing to happen. They complain about whose house they’ll spend each holiday at, what they have to buy and how much credit card debt they’ll be getting into.

I remember working retail one year in New York so I could afford to travel home each month through the holidays. I worked at Border’s books right near Madison Square Garden. A lady came up to my register and piled toys and books and knick-knacks on the counter. It looked like Everest. Her total came to over $1200. She handed me three credit cards which all came up declined. I was about to suggest she rethink her purchases (something you’re not supposed to say in retail) when she pulled out a sweaty wad of cash and thumbed through the bills to the tune of her amount due. She handed this to me shamelessly, and I tendered it with a blown mind. I knew she had to walk past a few dozen freezing cold homeless people so that her bratty grandkids could pretend to enjoy whatever nonsense she just gave her casino money up for. The world felt colder.

What bothers me most about the holiday season is that so much effort is put into what we can give ourselves (or people who are extensions of ourselves) as if it’s some kind of competition. We mollify the primal desire we have to affect actual world change by buying the latest device and telling ourselves that we’ll make a list (on said device) called How I’ll Change the World.

I love spontaneous gifts. I received them my entire childhood. My parents didn’t wait until the right season to give me a hand wrapped gift. My mom would put them on my pillow on a random Tuesday if she felt like it. Nothing huge or expensive — just some thing she saw that she had enough money to buy that she knew would make us smile. My first diary — gold bound with a real dial lock and dancing bears on the cover, a Lisa Frank pencil box filled with Lisa Frank pencils and erasers, a Chinese jump rope, chocolate money. I learned that gifts came from someone’s actual heart — not some preconceived wish list or overstated “hints” muttered in jest during purposeless shopping mall trips.

So I’m kind of an intentions-junkie. I pay closer attention to the “why” and not so much to the “what”.

And who needs another Black Friday stalking, coupon hoarding, fat cat shopper? I would much rather clean out my closet and hand my unused crap to someone who needs it more than I. Or scoop hot food onto a plate being held by the hands of someone so thankful for it that they are brought to literal tears.

I would much rather look into the eyes of my family members and actually appreciate them and accept their presence as my gift this year. I don’t require any pretty favors from anyone. I don’t need any more shit — I can buy my own shit. I’m immune to that thing that makes people pretend that the holidays are something they are not — and I’m grateful for my immunity.

I look at my son and I feel the tinge. I know I have to make a choice, and soon. To embrace the holidays or not for his own sake. I know I’ll find an acceptable in-between. I’ll gladly march down the isle of a toy store and buy my son the biggest, most impressive item I can fit into my car just to see that look on his face. To watch him struggle with wrapping paper and scream at the sight of whatever shiny new thing laid nesting within it.

He’ll also know about hunger in his own community, hand his unused clothes and toys to people who are thankful to receive them. Help me shop for children who don’t have parents and need gloves and coats and socks. And someday soon, when he’s old enough to stand a daylong flight, we’ll travel outside of this jaded country and discover that big world together.

To me, those things feed us more than a discount turkey straddled by re-heated dressing. They inspire us more than half-priced flat screen TVs and iPads you waited in lines for. At some point, as parents and as individuals, we have to look at the things we do — daily, monthly, yearly — and analyze whether or not they are full of purpose. Whether or not they are building up the next generation and helping to create a better world. Whatever part of the process provides that to your life; embrace it, protect it and stand by it without apology. But buying into everything won’t gain you freedom and it won’t make the world less cold when we step outside our covers.

Seek real things. Seek them fiercely.