On the Christmas Spirit

The Christmas Spirit

Christmas is the most wonderful time of the year. There’s this expectation that the entire world is filled with the “Christmas spirit.” Compassion, empathy, kindness and generosity are supposed to be ubiquitous during the first weeks of every December. People give presents. People wrap presents. People help other people carry stacks of presents just to get in on the charitable feelings of the season. Children laugh and smile. Parents try to plant trees in the living room. Homes across the globe are broken into by a fat man in a red jumpsuit. This time of the year really is grand, isn’t it?

Or it may be the worst. How is it that Christmas manages to inspire some to reach the peak of the humanity while it brings others down to the depths of human depravity? Why are there so many lawsuits about nativity scenes? Why are newscasters declaring war on people that they think are declaring war on Christmas? Why is it that only at Christmas can a cheerful holiday greeting suddenly be transformed into a vicious attack on one’s ethnic heritage?

Why do human beings have to ruin everything great if only to make some stupid, artificial and shallow point? Are they so blind that they cannot see their pettiness gets in the way of the one of the only times of the year when people actually are encouraged to be nice to each other, when people go out of the way to help strangers and enjoy human company?

I grew up in a New England town that was cold in more ways than one. While Midwesterners seem to have made a conscious decision to combat bitter climates with warmth and hospitality, New Englanders decided to fight fire with fire, or more accurately, ice with ice. It is a place so poisoned by the Puritan conventions of early immigrants that stiff nods and contorted grimaces were the standard greeting. To wave hello was or even utter the word was to reveal yourself as either an uninformed outsider or just as a pure lunatic. Either way, you were set to be shunned.

But then Christmas would come and something would crack open the shell that surrounds each darkened New England heart. People would smile to each other. People would shout (they would shout!) “Merry Christmas” and “Happy Holidays” to each other. It didn’t matter which greeting anyone used because the message, the meaning was what mattered. None of the mainlining Christians cared if you told them to have a “Happy Holiday” instead of a “Merry Christmas.” And none of the non-Christians were offended if you told them “Merry Christmas” instead of something more secular. Because they understood it. They were all indulging in the spirit that defines the season. They came together to deck halls and trim trees and give gifts and sing songs.

The change I saw in my hometown every Christmas will forever inform my understanding of Christmas as being as much a secular holiday as religious. I was raised Christian, but have since become significantly less religious.

But each Christmas season, I would see a change that was much more humanistic than religious. I would see neighbors, whose usual daily interaction was no more than awkwardly glaring at each other while bringing the garbage bins out to the road every Thursday night, actually shake hands and talk to each other. People who would normally maintain the minimum two-and-a-half foot perimeter to prevent any unintentional human contact would jubilantly rub shoulders while singing in a mob under the town tree.

That’s what makes Christmas important, at least to me. It isn’t a time to try to impress upon people the important Christian foundations of the United States, nor is it a time to further wedge something between the secular and religious institutions of the country. It isn’t about maintaining, one way or another, the sanctity, autonomy or independence of any specific religious tradition, be it Christianity, Judaism or Islam. It’s about, and it seems to be one of the few times a year when this is truly and limitlessly encouraged, coming together as a community. It’s about love, generosity, kindness and a new iPad mini…

A reddit user aptly named shit_another_brick submitted this image to the site, simply adding that her “mom is a 4th grade teacher. Here's one of her Muslim student's letters to Santa.” Here is the picture:

I know the kid writing this letter may feel left out. She may feel pretty bad about being forced to participate in a tradition that she and her family don’t celebrate. But she gets it, doesn’t she?