Celebrate

I started this as a "Night Before Christmas" parody, and had some fun with it. But the further I got, the more it became a been there, done that, got the couplet sort of thing. So instead this is just going to be a run through of a couple of thoughts on the season almost past.

I really wish it was possible to go through a winter holiday season without finding news of the seemingly inevitable battles over who can display what symbols of which celebrations where and for how long. And just so you know, I’m going to avoid the term political correctness here, since the term itself has become just as loaded as the things it refers to. More importantly it doesn’t mean the same thing to everyone so one person sees it as people looking to find offense where none exists, while others see it as people labeling real offense in a way that lets them brush it off as meaningless. That’s not going to change and none of it is helpful, so I’m simply avoiding the term.

Suppressing all the symbols of all the religions isn’t the answer any more than putting a finger in the hole really fixes the dam. Me, I don’t understand why symbols not inherently offensive of themselves (e.g. blood dripping symbols of bring your favorite axe-murderer to work month) have to be considered offensive just because they’re associated with another person’s religion. Yes, your celebration may not be mine (note that may not be is not the same as cannot be), but that doesn’t belittle or in any way interfere with my celebration. Actually adds to it, if I like you. Equal access, equal opportunity to celebrate… this is a bad thing?

While as to the whole “looking at your symbols feels exclusionary” argument that I heard again on the radio Christmas day... it doesn’t work for me unless those symbols are put up with a clear "keep out" intent. It may be thoughtless of others in the literal sense of not thinking of them, but that's not the same as actively  excluding them. We all are constantly surrounded by things and reminders of things that are part of others’ lives but not ours without feeling each of them is an unfeeling finger saying begone. Usually with little thought about it when it doesn’t concern religion. To take a less fraught example, I’m constantly told that my local pro basketball team has to have a white guy on the bench for the local white fans to cheer for or they won’t embrace the team. Separate from whether or not this is true, who do the people telling me this, who know that I am a huge fan and often know that I am a female season ticket holder, think is there for me And if they're not there, why do I cheer? Feeling something is exclusionary, except where enforced by law of some kind (Not necessarily civil, although it is why civil law has to allow everyone equal access to display their symbols, no matter what the proportions are of the various religions are in the population) quite often has as much or more to do with the person feeling it and why than it does with what’s actually happening or intended.

Anyway, in celebration of symbols galore, I hope everyone had a Merry Christmas, a Happy Festivus, a Happy Chanukah, is enjoying a Happy Qwanzaa, and any other December holiday I can’t recall to mention, not just some slightly grayed over to stay generic happy season.

My radio (Ah, I probably haven’t mentioned that I don’t have TV. No, it’s not out of a feeling intellectual superiority—a lot of genre fiction I read could just as easily be categorized as mind candy, although there is the key push / pull difference that it still requires the work of reading on my part where TV is all spoon fed to you. It came out of a cost / benefit evaluation and an active wish not to become more of a TV addict. When the last one died some years back I realized that I basically watched news and sports and nothing else with any regularity, yet those cable bills were already high and kept going up. To get any TV reception where I live, along with the couple things I did watch, I had to pay too much for far more service than I used or wanted to use. So I just didn’t replace the TV. Which means I never had to watch Monica Lewinski [it's been a while]. I’ve never seen an episode of a reality show. I've missed out on the "news" obsessions over Paris and Brittney and who knows who else. This does not feel like a tragic loss to me. I’ve watched things I’ve really wanted to on my computer or at a friend’s or at a bar.) ...anyway, as I was saying, my radio has been one continual ad for a site offering to help you "redefine Christmas.” The idea is that you give to a charity instead of a store bought typical gift.

But I don’t see how that IS redefining Christmas. It’s still giving via an exchange of cash and holiday only charitable giving isn’t a new concept. While despite all their gentle voiced put downs of typical gifts, I don’t just give a gift to give a gift or value gifts received or my friends by their cost. I do it with thought and care and because I enjoy giving gifts. And I think that's true of more people than they'd want to admit to, even if not all their gifts fit that mold (yes there can be those “habit of” exchanges that someone has to detangle or they will go on forever with nothing but habit behind them).

And while I’m all for giving to charity in theory and fact, there’s no indication in any of this that charitable giving has its own issues, because of such things as how many of your dollars go to fund raising and admin costs vs what you think you’re giving for with so many charities. Plus there’s something that just bothers me about the idea of needing a website to do this in the first place, much less one involving all these celebrities who could cover the entire budget of any charity I might choose, if charitable giving is so important to them (no, I don't respond well to commercial celebrity pitches either... I'm supposed to choose this underwear because WHO wears it??) giving me moral judgements about how to spend my money.

In any case, you do already see people giving more during the holiday season, from plates of homemade cookies shared with the neighbors you only see at town meetings to those dollars in the Salvation Army kettles (a much sought after job in this economy). I think it’s great to encourage people to be charitable and hope they will be, but I don’t see anything wrong with taking an opportunity for some special giving to their friends and family either and think it would be nice if we would be allowed to enjoy that. Especially when that gift comes, as it usually does, with a personal piece of themselves, which is not often a part of charitable gifts.

But enough with the negativity. We can celebrate that or we can celebrate the season. Neither cynicism nor commericialism can ruin the season of gifts and greetings and gatherings in a variety of names, unless we let them. That would be the easy thing to do, because there is so much evidence for the negative and the commercial. But every time we smile at a wide eyed kid solemnly lighting candles or laugh at the falling off a cliff voice singing “you’re a mean one, Mr. Grinch” or let Grandpa think he's giving us a gift when he shares the same story from his childhood that he tells every year during the holidays, we help keep that from happening. And THAT’S worth celebrating.

Comments

[Jeff Cohen]

It's not a question of whether the symbols, whatever they be, are offensive, Kim. It's a question of keeping ALL symbols of a specific religion off land that is owned by a municipal/county/state/Federal government. The idea here is that the Constitution prohibits the establishment of a national religion, and the idea that "don't worry, we have a menorah, too" really doesn't make that any better. I will now stand aside so people can throw things at me.

[Kim Malo]

Well don't look at me, my arm isn't that good.

Sure, I know that argument. I don't wholly buy it, for reasons that only start with the number of Judeo-Christian words and symbols that are all over everything from our money to government buildings and move on through exactly what comprises establishing a state religion. But I also agree that a token "some of my best symbol friends are Menorahs" is hardly an improvement, not even in level of hypocrisy. I still don't wholly agree with it, but I can see idea of banning them under the limitations you suggest (limiting it to that, BTW, is a whole 'nother issue in practice), if for no other reason than greatest good for the greatest number.

What I guess I wasn't clear enough about was that I was talking about annual fights that are all too clearly and blatantly based in something else, deep resentment and an all too viceral rejection of the other for itself, whichever side of that other one is on (and it may not always be what others assume). If you don't have that where you are and don't see it on the news all too regularly from elsewhere, then I am genuinely happy for you. Because it's become an annual event in my world, and one I'd like to do not have to experience.