holiday mumbling
Dec. 20th, 2007 12:24 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
sleepymaggiethoughts, long and grumbly
I'm not big on the holidays.
(Part of me desperately wants to put "the holidays" in quotes (just like that) for a number of (possibly silly and ridiculous) reasons. Apparently these are THE holidays, whatever that means.)
Ahem.
I'm not big on the holidays. An example: every time that Pat and I have had people over, they compliment the small decorated tree on our table. And every time I tell whomever that is: thank you, but it's not our tree it's our roommates tree. And every time, whomever they are, they give me this funny look.
I don't make this comment because it's not a nice tree -- it's rather pretty. It's just really really really *not* my tree. I don't mind it being there, but I'm not going to take credit for it either. It's like when my roommate's menorah was out -- also, a very pretty object that I find aesthetically pleasing, but not my menorah.
I don't particularly like Christmas trees. There's the first layer of this, the part where I'm emphatically not a Christian, the part that feels that no matter how much you call it a "Yule Tree" it's still a Christmas tree. And I'm not saying this as a comment on anyone else's whatever -- I'm just saying that for me, it's weird to have a decorated tree in my house if I don't celebrate Christmas. (This isn't me trying to start a historical debate about where the Christmas tree tradition comes from -- this is me saying that I associate them with Christmas.)
The second layer of this is that I hate the idea of chopping down a live tree just so you can have something pretty in your house -- something pretty that you're going to throw away after a few weeks. And it makes me grumble in my head every time I see one. I guess I just don't understand the magic of having something slowly die in your living room.
I don't celebrate Christmas, I celebrate Winter Solstice, because I'm a silly Neo-Pagan. At this time of year, all I want to do is try to get through the increasing dark. And I guess that's what everyone is trying to do: just brighten the dark up with shiny things and presents and parties and whatnot.
Not big on buying things. I like to give people presents, I like seeing their faces light up when they like something. But I don't really like the extremes that we've gone to, as a culture. Christmas displays out before Halloween and Thanksgiving. Constant commercials that want you to buy jewelry and power tools and big tvs and whatever. It's just too much. I don't need or want stuff that badly. I'd rather spend time with people, eat/cook nice meals, watch movies -- stuff that evaporates into memory.
(Plus, there's the always present fact that neither of us has a job. No jobs means no presents for anyone. Every time I get another gift from someone I feel crappy. I know that's not the point, but I still do.)
So yeah, Christmas, Christian or secular or whatever, is just really not my thing.
I'll be celebrating Solstice tomorrow night. We'll watch the sun set and then stay up through the long dark. Before dawn we'll go with a couple of other people down to Point Pleasant and we'll watch the sun come up over the ocean. And that'll be good for me.
(The one thing I do regret is missing the HoH holiday party. It would be nice to get to spend time with people on cast without a show to put on. But Solstice is once a year and I hate to miss it.)
Long and rambly, I know, but I think I needed to say some of that. I keep seeing people's posts about parties and gifts and trees and whatnot -- just wanted to put my two cents in. At least I wasn't didn't get particularly angry about it.
I'm not big on the holidays.
(Part of me desperately wants to put "the holidays" in quotes (just like that) for a number of (possibly silly and ridiculous) reasons. Apparently these are THE holidays, whatever that means.)
Ahem.
I'm not big on the holidays. An example: every time that Pat and I have had people over, they compliment the small decorated tree on our table. And every time I tell whomever that is: thank you, but it's not our tree it's our roommates tree. And every time, whomever they are, they give me this funny look.
I don't make this comment because it's not a nice tree -- it's rather pretty. It's just really really really *not* my tree. I don't mind it being there, but I'm not going to take credit for it either. It's like when my roommate's menorah was out -- also, a very pretty object that I find aesthetically pleasing, but not my menorah.
I don't particularly like Christmas trees. There's the first layer of this, the part where I'm emphatically not a Christian, the part that feels that no matter how much you call it a "Yule Tree" it's still a Christmas tree. And I'm not saying this as a comment on anyone else's whatever -- I'm just saying that for me, it's weird to have a decorated tree in my house if I don't celebrate Christmas. (This isn't me trying to start a historical debate about where the Christmas tree tradition comes from -- this is me saying that I associate them with Christmas.)
The second layer of this is that I hate the idea of chopping down a live tree just so you can have something pretty in your house -- something pretty that you're going to throw away after a few weeks. And it makes me grumble in my head every time I see one. I guess I just don't understand the magic of having something slowly die in your living room.
I don't celebrate Christmas, I celebrate Winter Solstice, because I'm a silly Neo-Pagan. At this time of year, all I want to do is try to get through the increasing dark. And I guess that's what everyone is trying to do: just brighten the dark up with shiny things and presents and parties and whatnot.
Not big on buying things. I like to give people presents, I like seeing their faces light up when they like something. But I don't really like the extremes that we've gone to, as a culture. Christmas displays out before Halloween and Thanksgiving. Constant commercials that want you to buy jewelry and power tools and big tvs and whatever. It's just too much. I don't need or want stuff that badly. I'd rather spend time with people, eat/cook nice meals, watch movies -- stuff that evaporates into memory.
(Plus, there's the always present fact that neither of us has a job. No jobs means no presents for anyone. Every time I get another gift from someone I feel crappy. I know that's not the point, but I still do.)
So yeah, Christmas, Christian or secular or whatever, is just really not my thing.
I'll be celebrating Solstice tomorrow night. We'll watch the sun set and then stay up through the long dark. Before dawn we'll go with a couple of other people down to Point Pleasant and we'll watch the sun come up over the ocean. And that'll be good for me.
(The one thing I do regret is missing the HoH holiday party. It would be nice to get to spend time with people on cast without a show to put on. But Solstice is once a year and I hate to miss it.)
Long and rambly, I know, but I think I needed to say some of that. I keep seeing people's posts about parties and gifts and trees and whatnot -- just wanted to put my two cents in. At least I wasn't didn't get particularly angry about it.
