An American Christmas in the 21st Century: 'Tis Not the Season to Be Jolly
Every December, the merry curse of Christmas arrives again, bringing its annual mixture of cheerless mirth, strained traditions, and widespread falseness. In the 21st century, Christmas within the grasping mainstream of America is not for anyone of a timorous disposition. It is a grueling test of patience and endurance, a maddening time when the usual rules of restraint and civility are either stretched to their utmost, or, in the worst situations, summarily discarded. It is a time of gross hypocrisy, when Americans dishonestly speak of “peace on earth,” even as their own government is aiming bombs and missiles at civilians throughout the world.
I should make it clear that I am not opposed to colored lights, bright decorations, or lively songs. I hold those customs to be essentially benign, and I generally enjoy them. (Although I would much prefer not to be exposed to them in October.) I can also enjoy the well-meaning exchange of small gifts and good wishes. It is, rather, the overpowering element of desperate consumption that particularly offends me. In America, where the brazen pursuit of money is commonly accorded precedence over every other consideration, and human life itself is valued only in regard to its business potential, Christmas is, above all else, a hideous festival of hard-core capitalism, shrill and unashamed in its hollow pomp.
What began, hundreds of years ago, as a spiritual observance has now become an ugly glorification of rampant consumerism, a graceless display of mass irrationality in which millions of nominal Christians make a crude show of giving shallow expression to their casual faith in Jesus Christ, by means of collectively purchasing mountains of unnecessary merchandise. It is a perverse way to honor the lowly birth of a humble man who lived his entire life in poverty. Can there be any doubt that Jesus himself would vigorously object to his name being used to justify a yearly outpouring of greed and pretense? It seems more than likely that he would be utterly repelled by the garish trappings of an American Christmas.
I always looked forward to the old-fashioned delights of Christmas when I was younger. The carols, the greeting cards, the holly and the mistletoe, the gingerbread and the chocolate, the stockings hung on the fireplace, the evergreen tree covered with tinsel, and the packages in shiny wrapping all filled me with eagerness and excitement, and served as a welcome respite from the regular activities of my everyday life. On every Christmas Eve during my childhood, I would try to stay awake until the hour of dawn, hoping to hear the fleeting sound of an airborne sleigh being swiftly pulled by a team of flying reindeer, but I usually fell asleep at least a few hours before daylight.
Christmas was still a mostly pleasurable experience at that time, an experience to be embraced and cherished, but those days are long gone. The ravenous demands of capitalist avarice in America have increased and expanded, year after year, brutally defiling the true import of Christmas, transforming the ancient joy of yuletide into a disheartening free-for-all of heinous excess. Only an ill-mannered person with vulgar tastes, a particularly willful blockhead whose human sensibilities are seriously defective (or completely absent), could succeed in deriving any particle of happiness from such unbridled lunacy.
Nowadays, when the corporate stench of Christmas is everywhere during the holiday period, in every store and in every home, I find that I am in constant danger of becoming more peevish than Ebenezer Scrooge, and more sour than the Grinch. I do my best to maintain a safe, cautious distance from the harshest elements of the season, but it is not an easy task, for they are difficult to avoid. Christmas in America is now a lucrative operation of relentless marketing, ruthlessly implemented with fearsome effectiveness and boldly enormous in its gruesome proportions. It is, at its most repugnant, a thoroughly hellish ordeal that can be seen as akin to a plague, being both overwhelming and inescapable.
As the old saying goes, Christmas comes but once a year, and for that immutable verity I am unreservedly grateful. Once a year is about as much of Christmas, in the monstrous shape of its American variation, as I (being neither the chief executive of a retail corporation or an empty-headed shopper on the lookout for another bargain) can reasonably hope to get through, without losing most of my mind. For those of us, whether devout believers or firm unbelievers, who actually remember the story of the special child in the manger and are given to pondering its essential meaning, ‘tis not the season to be jolly.
I should make it clear that I am not opposed to colored lights, bright decorations, or lively songs. I hold those customs to be essentially benign, and I generally enjoy them. (Although I would much prefer not to be exposed to them in October.) I can also enjoy the well-meaning exchange of small gifts and good wishes. It is, rather, the overpowering element of desperate consumption that particularly offends me. In America, where the brazen pursuit of money is commonly accorded precedence over every other consideration, and human life itself is valued only in regard to its business potential, Christmas is, above all else, a hideous festival of hard-core capitalism, shrill and unashamed in its hollow pomp.
What began, hundreds of years ago, as a spiritual observance has now become an ugly glorification of rampant consumerism, a graceless display of mass irrationality in which millions of nominal Christians make a crude show of giving shallow expression to their casual faith in Jesus Christ, by means of collectively purchasing mountains of unnecessary merchandise. It is a perverse way to honor the lowly birth of a humble man who lived his entire life in poverty. Can there be any doubt that Jesus himself would vigorously object to his name being used to justify a yearly outpouring of greed and pretense? It seems more than likely that he would be utterly repelled by the garish trappings of an American Christmas.
I always looked forward to the old-fashioned delights of Christmas when I was younger. The carols, the greeting cards, the holly and the mistletoe, the gingerbread and the chocolate, the stockings hung on the fireplace, the evergreen tree covered with tinsel, and the packages in shiny wrapping all filled me with eagerness and excitement, and served as a welcome respite from the regular activities of my everyday life. On every Christmas Eve during my childhood, I would try to stay awake until the hour of dawn, hoping to hear the fleeting sound of an airborne sleigh being swiftly pulled by a team of flying reindeer, but I usually fell asleep at least a few hours before daylight.
Christmas was still a mostly pleasurable experience at that time, an experience to be embraced and cherished, but those days are long gone. The ravenous demands of capitalist avarice in America have increased and expanded, year after year, brutally defiling the true import of Christmas, transforming the ancient joy of yuletide into a disheartening free-for-all of heinous excess. Only an ill-mannered person with vulgar tastes, a particularly willful blockhead whose human sensibilities are seriously defective (or completely absent), could succeed in deriving any particle of happiness from such unbridled lunacy.
Nowadays, when the corporate stench of Christmas is everywhere during the holiday period, in every store and in every home, I find that I am in constant danger of becoming more peevish than Ebenezer Scrooge, and more sour than the Grinch. I do my best to maintain a safe, cautious distance from the harshest elements of the season, but it is not an easy task, for they are difficult to avoid. Christmas in America is now a lucrative operation of relentless marketing, ruthlessly implemented with fearsome effectiveness and boldly enormous in its gruesome proportions. It is, at its most repugnant, a thoroughly hellish ordeal that can be seen as akin to a plague, being both overwhelming and inescapable.
As the old saying goes, Christmas comes but once a year, and for that immutable verity I am unreservedly grateful. Once a year is about as much of Christmas, in the monstrous shape of its American variation, as I (being neither the chief executive of a retail corporation or an empty-headed shopper on the lookout for another bargain) can reasonably hope to get through, without losing most of my mind. For those of us, whether devout believers or firm unbelievers, who actually remember the story of the special child in the manger and are given to pondering its essential meaning, ‘tis not the season to be jolly.