Am I Becoming a Scrooge?

Okay, before you burn me at the stake let me just say, in the end, after I've questioned whether this whole Jesus as the Son of God thing is real, let me say this all goes to a good place - for believers and non-believers and kids that just want to get through Christmas without too many hitches or disappointments. In fact, to even clarify that this holiday blog is for everyone, let me say that I'm writing this while listening to a Christmas album by Sufjan Stevens, an exceptional artist and album that was recommended to me from a jewish comedian friend of mine. This is a unity writing in the end, trust me.

Apparently I was baptized Catholic when I was a baby. My Mom confirmed this at a whisper when I was transferring from Public school to Catholic School in grade 8. I said to my Dad, "I can't go there, we're not Catholic?" To which he replied, "Well, actually you were baptized Catholic." And this is when my Mom, at a whisper of defeat, nodded that this was indeed true. Turns out this was something my Dad's mother insisted upon, that all her Grandkids get baptized. And so we were. I'll never get the complexity of life, my Mom (white) is a 60's free-spirit, open spiritually kind of person, and my Dad (Aboriginal) was raised Catholic. Who knows anymore, you know?

Anyway, I bring this whole thing up because as if being a "mixed-blood" kid wasn't confusing enough, I was living half my life in a free-spirit, world religion openness until I was told I was somehow Catholic and now had to go to school with only Catholics who were in fact avid believers ... or at least their parents were willing to have their school taxes go to a Catholic school board so their kids could attend one. Which meant, I went years and years with a notion that Christmas was a winter holiday, meant for a time of giving, or in my kid-sense, a time of dreaming and wishing and hoping. There wasn't a Jesus, son of God, birthday kind of aspect to it. It's been hard to shake.

I'm torn (and I say torn because I think flabbergasted may be too strong a word at this point) with the whole Son of God thing. See, I think people are good writers and people have always had a great sense of storytelling, and that there are basic things to storytelling that are timeless. If you want to pack a church, saying Jesus is this amazing man that was born, lived, loved, and went to the desert and came back with amazing revelations about how we should all live better with one another, in light of our society of that particular time, it might not be enough. It's a good story, but its not a GREAT story, you know?

"Hey everyone, come here this guy speak. Heck of a guy. He has some really powerful things to tell you. Come on out and enlighten yourself."

Okay, how about this:

"Hey everyone, come out and hear the Son of God speak the Lord's word."

Tell me, which one is going to put more butts in the seats? And if you're going to have a get-together, sing songs, read, talk, form a community, grow up together in a group with shared stories and songs, best to have as many people as possible in the room with you, no? I mean, think about it in terms of creating a tax base from which to form your own separate school board. If we're telling an amazing mythological story, one for the ages, one to get everyone to listen, Jesus as a man really isn't going to cover it, better to make Him the son of God. But perhaps I'm missing the point?

For me, going from a Santa Clause, the Grinch Who Stole Christmas, sense of the holiday to this heavier-handed Son of God's birthday celebration was strange. The thing I find fascinating though, every time the holiday comes about is how much it still resonates within me whether I'm a religious believer or not. Every year I watch Scrooged with Bill Murray and at the end when he makes his plea that the feeling of giving should be a daily thing, I swear to god, I get a huge lump in my throat. When I drop a $50 bill into the Salvation Army's plastic bubble, with the Santa Claus guy swinging the bell beside it, I get a huge lump in my throat. I want to give and give and give and I want to be selfless, and I want us all to live in peace, and I want us all to live more softly and quietly and in more harmony with all living things ... I want what I think Jesus wanted ... and every other great Sage ... and person. We lock God-Giving-Selflessness into Jesus and therefore, Jesus' b-day, and we lock it to one time of the year, which can make for a great time of year as we all keep getting together with family and friends, but the beauty is also the tragedy. Come New Years, well, we're done with that whole thing, we sung the songs, we got together, we gave, and well, the holiday is over. So, it's hard now as an adult to get too worked up about Christmas, because from lived experience we know it's going to be great, but it'll pass like it never happened all the same.

What I'm trying to get at is that Christmas is very complicated, it's a mixed bag of emotions. I have amazing memories of Christmas (basically when I got what I wanted and won all the card games my family plays when we get together over the holidays). I also have bad memories of Christmas (when families put aside work and their "real-life" to really focus and hang out together completely out of synch with their normal life so we get shifty, cabin feverish, and suddenly whoever wins the next hand has massive implications because we've actually gone insane by this point). It's also a time of massive consumerism and all the rest of that thing where you go out and buy the world, and I would say that this is actually an act looking for connection and belonging, and you come back with just a bag of stuff that really doesn't say I love you and really doesn't say you're an amazing mother. It's a time when we all just basically loose our heads trying so desperately to cram a years worth, a lifetimes worth of heart into one day. We really want to say, "I really love you, I love everybody." I mean, isn't that basically the final refrain of every Christmas story/movie? Maybe if we didn't try to cram it all at once it wouldn't come out so awkwardly, maybe monthly Christmas', where we have dinner with friends and give cards to each other that say "hey man, I love you," would better prepare us for Christmas itself?

I was listening to Bruce Mau on the CBC (radio) the other day. Nothing better than a cup of tea, some porridge, and the CBC radio on with Sheila Rogers waxing it with someone. (I know, one minute you're eating Coco Puffs listening to Motley Crew and the next you're drinking tea to the CBC, go figure?) And Bruce was talking about the news, how we really have nothing positive in it, it's a focus of crisis and conflict. And all of this news, this crisis and conflict, touches us, effects us, negatively, but we can touch it, we can't change it. And when we get exposed to too much of the news (crisis and conflict) we tend to circle our wagons, we begin to look out for ourselves - a natural human survival instinct - and suddenly we're less open to one another, less open to new ideas, and less open to optimism and community. We become, in my mind, catty misanthropes gathered around the water cooler whispering to a playmate that he or she looks fat in that outfit. And in light of all of this I WANT the Christmas spirit, the Alistair Simm awakening, to smack us all. I want to sing the carols together and kiss under mistletoe, I want to do whatever it takes to overcome the crisis and conflict ... I want Christmas to be real. I want it to actually mean something. I want to believe in it. When I say I want us to do good, I really mean it, I really want to do good, I want life to be meaningful and positive, and I get distraught to think the emotion we're throwing into the 25th of December is just a momentary flick of the switch, and then I get protective of even having the ridiculous and childish feelings at all ... that life is good and we are intrinsically good and decent to each other... I get like, "if we're not going to really go for it, for real, than why even bother faking it all?"

So, brothers and sisters, my point is this: I can't figure out Christmas. I can't figure out if I'm for or against it. It just is. Year in and year out. I know I'm going to buy people things because I find it fun. I know I'm going to hang with family and we're bound to drive each other a little nuts. I know I'm going to bug my sister Suzanne like we're still 5 years old because it's what I've done ever since I turned 5 and was able to make note of the way I was acting with her.

So, I'm wishing you a happy holiday, one that you can't fight. You're going to buy a gift for someone because you want it to say everything that you feel in your heart about that person and most likely they'll toss it aside as no big deal, because really they already know you love them and they love you. The ups, the downs, the thrill of it, the agony, it's all part of the whole 2 weeks we got coming up. And maybe the holiday will have something to do with the whole Jesus aspect of the thing, but probably not - well not overtly, most likely subtly, like when Alistair flips the coin down, all born anew, awakened to giving his life to all selflessly, and you well up a little, maybe that's the Jesus*** part. Or maybe that other Christmas classic, the final scene being the bad guy falling 100 floors down the side of a building, splattering on the pavement below, as John hugs his wife and the Twinkie guy says, "yeah, you're alright my man." How did Die Hard become a Christmas Classic anyway? Lethal Weapon is another one - you just set it in the Holiday season and presto, you're on the holiday TV cycle?

Jesus, I'm like the guy walking out your front door saying goodbye over and over again, a little drunk and he just want let it go, turn around, and go home, so you're left standing there on your porch freezing your ass off trying to humour him until he's gone. Look, I'm sorry, I'm done, the Blog's over. Bye.

*** Note: in this sentence, when using Jesus, I mean it less in the Son of God way and more in the word representation of the best parts of our living collective spirit. Writing about God, Spirit, Jesus is like trying to run your way through quicksand - all the words and efforts and sidebars and notes to better explain yourself and all you're doing is sinking further and further under.