2010.12.11
Days Remaining: 171
Days of Marriage Remaining: 6 (inclusive)

01. Last Saturday, after returning from the Mashantucket Pequot Museum and posting on this blog, I randomly logged on to Facebook, something I normally avoid (except for a once-a-month check to see if anything important has come my way). Lucky for me that I did so, as my sister Selena had posted a note asking me to call her regarding a long-delayed present for Iunia and Euander. Last year I found out that the European toy company Playmobil produces annual Advent Calendars, and 2009's was one called "Christmas in the Forest" (you can see it online at http://store.playmobilusa.com/on/demandware.store/Sites-US-Site/en_US/Product-Show?pid=4155&cgid= ). I cannot recall if I purchased the calendars (one for each kid) myself or if I had my mom, hereafter known as Momula (married, of course, to Dadulus), pick them up for me at the wonderful toy store in Wilmington, Yo-Yo Joe's (http://www.yoyojoes.com/). Regardless, my brother Decius and his wife had already provided Advent calendars for last year (My Little Pony, I believe), so the Playmobil ones went into storage. Apparently last Saturday Selena and family did their outdoor holiday decorating, and Selena rediscovered the stored calendars. The kids were, perhaps unsurprisingly, very eager to open the presents, but Selena wanted my permission before they did so. So I called and gave them my blessing. Selena wrote about the opening on her blog (www.yestheykeepmebusy.blogspot.com), and she mentioned something I didn't know: that the calendars require assembly. So she had to put two of them together with the able assistance of the kids.

02. I really liked that calendar (they still sell it, if anyone else is interested) because of the emphasis on charity and the de-emphasis on anything particularly religious (no references, other than the date, to Christianity, Jesus, etc.). As a non-Christian who loves Christmas, it has become normal for me to wax and wane on how much I'm troubled by the explicitly Christian parts of this holiday. For those who say, "Well, it is Christmas," I can only point to history and the fact that many of the things we do at this time of year have antecedents (both calendrical and behavioral) from long before the alleged time of Jesus' birth. That's not to say that I think our modern holiday is entirely divorce-able from Christian history, but I think its origins are complicated and can be disentangled such that there is no reason why one has to assume there is an essence to it. On the other hand, because there is no essence, people can legitimately say they're celebrating it for any number of reasons (aesthetic pleasure, family and social tradition, theological identity, and so forth). All of them are actually found in people's reasons, and while many (especially, nowadays, Christian folks) claim that the holiday has A meaning, I think that history doesn't support their claims. It does, however, indicate that this holiday has been the subject of debate and contention for a long time, and that specifically Christian theological significance has become, in the past 150 years, one of the dominant ideas about it. But it's worth remembering that before 1800 many Christian denominations actually argued against celebrating Christmas, seeing it as nothing but a Christian veneer on a transparently non-Christian festival. I see no reason why the modern Christian claiming of the holiday is more legitimate than the 18th Century Christian rejection of it.

03. Anyway, I mention all of this because I love the holiday (though in my heart of hearts I wish it had a different name - I like Yule and Yuletide - and a different customary greeting - my preference would be Wassail!) and am really not feeling it this year. The past several years have not been good for Yuletide cheer in my household(s), although in the first year or two of my marriage there were more active attempts to engender it. The latter two years, though, not so much, and the holiday became nothing but a source of contention and even resentment. This year, so far, it's mostly kind of lonely and currently taking second place, emotionally, to the upcoming divorce hearing next Friday (the day after my birthday, of course). I spoke for a while with Romulus (who is recovering from his ankle surgery, and is very upbeat about it, both of which make me glad) about this on Wednesday, and he offered a great deal of moral/emotional support, which helped tremendously (that was a particularly difficult night, for some reason). One thing he said that I think was very apt and which coincided (strangely) with something in my Love, Death & Desire class is that he had simply decided to put on some Christmas music and act like he had the spirit, and then somehow that transformed into actually having it.

04. We've been reading existentialists in my Love, Death & Desire course, particularly Camus and Sartre (the seasonally merriest of the French depressing philosophers...), both of whom, despite their aggravating and depressing rhetoric and word choices, offer some interesting ways to think about having holiday spirit. One of the basic points of French Existentialism is that Existence Precedes Essence: we have no stable and ongoing core, and so we are constantly in a process of making and re-making who we are, formed out of the actual choices we make. We are what we do, basically. Romulus' point illustrates that very well, I think: by acting in a holiday mode, he was able to engender holiday moods.

05. I mention all of this because after talking with him I decided to be a bit more proactive and put on holiday music and maybe watch some of the TV specials that are available on Hulu.com, or films available for streaming on Netflix. I was particularly struck by an interesting dichotomy in them: some are focused on the idea of Christmas as being about Jesus' birth, and others don't mention that at all, instead they (thus far, usually) focus on Santa Claus. In both cases, though, whether it's baby Jesus or Santa Claus, the implications drawn are the same: generosity, good will, and joy. But the Santa-focused specials offer another interesting development. I'll use the Glee holiday episode as an example.

06. Though there were many subplots in the episode, one of the central ones was that one character, Brittany (a very, very psychologically and emotionally naive and odd character), still believes in Santa Claus. Her boyfriend, realizing this, tries to find ways to let her keep believing. But when they go to the mall Santa, her wish is that her boyfriend, who has to use a wheelchair, be able to walk. The mall Santa, in flagrant disregard for what should be standard policy, agrees. The boyfriend then gets another person to dress up as Santa and go to Brittany's house to tell her that Santa can't answer all wishes, and she's emotionally devastated. At the same time, the Glee Club has been struggling to find Christmas spirit throughout the episode despite major setbacks from everyone around them. The climax to both subplots occurs in sequence: the Glee Club carols the teachers' lounge (the only time I've ever liked the Who's Carol from When the Grinch Stole Christmas) and raises money for charity, and when they return to their choir room they discover that Brittany and Arty (her boyfriend) have discovered a "Rewalk" (a prosthetic device developed in Israel that allows parapelegics to walk for limited time while wearing a harness and leg braces) under Brittany's Christmas tree. Watching the episode, the viewer sees everyone trying to figure out where the Rewalk came from, and each option they think of is proven to not be the case. They eventually conclude, rather disbelievingly, that it was Santa Claus. But the viewer, with a different visual field, sees that the Football Coach (who had dressed up to tell Brittany that not all wishes are granted) is watching from the hallway, and it is left open to the viewer to conclude that the coach had provided the Rewalk (she's the only person seen who doesn't seem surprised by the Rewalk's presence). But this is never said directly or explicitly, and it remains an open question if the Coach was responsible.

07. Now, throughout the episode the only allusions to Christmas having a Christian religious meaning were oblique (primarily a Jewish character referring to the fact that her family doesn't celebrate Christmas), and the music performed was all secular holiday music. But belief in Santa was a major thematic focus, and was tied in repeatedly with the "magic" of Christmas. The Rewalk scene both confirmed that Santa is apparently magic and also that we make magic for one another (i.e., a human being, the Football Coach, had become Santa to grant someone's wish). Christmas is a place where performing miracles is the way to make miracles happen. This is, very weirdly, very much in line with the existentialist position I outlined above, and in line with Romulus' example/advice. This is, I think, why so many Christmas specials actually encourage us to be loving, caring, etc. in active ways: that's precisely how we become loving and caring, by acting out love and care (and it's one reason why there is such an emphasis in holiday specials to "keep Christmas with you" over the year: if this is a time when we're inclined to act more generously and lovingly, then it's a time when that sort of behavior can become integrated more easily into our everyday behavior).

08. My parents, Momula and Dadulus, used to have a caroling party each December 23rd, and I would dress up as Santa Claus for it (eventually in an incredible costume Momula made by hand, based on a description I wrote years before for a story). I loved doing it, and took it very seriously. I often thought about the moral issue that some people find in the Santa Claus idea: why lie to children about Santa existing? Doesn't it set them up for disappointment and set a bad moral example? But I think that's because we fall too easily into a very concrete idea of existence: if Santa Claus is "real," he is a physical being who lives in a physical house in the physical North Pole, etc. This leads to the problems of physics (see http://www.jimgeary.com/faves/joxe/JOXSCE05.HTM), which only work if one takes the idea as materially, concretely real. But if Santa Claus is real because we act him out, then "reality" is about behavior, not biological substance. And Santa is as real as we make him by being him. So, I say here, publicly (though not to everyone): I believe in Santa Claus. I've met him, several times. I've been him. And it was enough.

09. One final thought/topic for the day. I watched Christmas Eve on Sesame Street (the 1978 special) on Youtube (probably violating copyright by doing so, but my copy is packed away in a storage unit in Stanton, DE right now and not easily accessible). What always strikes me is a scene where Big Bird, who is concerned that Santa can't possibly fit down chimneys and therefore there will be no presents, is waiting on the rooftop of the apartment building where everyone lives. He wants to see how Santa Claus actually does it, but he eventually falls asleep. You, the viewer, see him sleeping, and eventually hear a faint jingling sound that grows louder, followed by a whooshing, crunching sound like hoof- and foot-steps, and then very clearly hear what sounds like a man getting out of a vehicle and walking towards Big Bird. At this point a human shadow comes into view, the person casting it moving to stand right in front of Big Bird. You never see who casts the shadow, and suddenly Big Bird wakes up. When he does, you see his perspective, and he's alone on the roof, but he says, "I just had the weirdest dream. I thought...but there aren't even any footprints." When he goes inside to warm up, and is discovered by the Sesame Street humans (who've been looking for him), they discover that Santa Claus has come to the apartments, though no one saw him do it. This is one of my favorite ways of depicting Santa Claus in film: by the effects of his presence, not by straightforward or direct witness. Glee touches on this in the scene I summarize above, because of course we never know if the Rewalk was purchased by the Football Coach. It's implied, but we don't know.

10. If we make Santa Claus real by being Santa Claus, we act like him by being mysterious and hard to pin down. We wear costumes, arrive and leave without anyone watching, disappear into another room from which someone else (not Santa Claus, obviously) emerges, and act without anyone knowing for sure it was us. We perform miracles, so that other people can believe in miracles, and if that is only because they don't see all the work backstage, it doesn't lessen the impact of the miracle. It doesn't matter if Dickens' Ghosts are real or just Scrooge's conscience finally waking up: what matters is that from that morning forth, he lives a different life.

11. I'm trying. It's particularly hard this year, and I know that that is true for pretty much all of us. I don't know anyone who isn't struggling this year (and that's often a struggle ongoing from last year). Most of us are short on money or security, many of us are caught in emotional conflicts or difficulties, and many of us are far apart from each other (and though I realize that we all have overlapping, not identical, social networks, I know very few of us are in close proximity to those networks' fullest development). If I had the money I'd give it away to everyone who needs it. If I had the emotional resources to bolster and comfort, I'd give it away to everyone who needs it. But I don't. It's cold outside, and the daylight dwindles a little further each day. But it only ends when we do, and sometimes we need to make the miracles we need to happen. I don't think of this as a theological truth so much as an empirical one: this is the time of year when the light comes back, and we just need to hold on until it does. And if that means acting jolly and merry in order to become jolly and merry, well, there are worse ways to act.