Christmas Eve

Was the weather always this grim in New Jersey in December? Ugh. We've had freezing rain for days - and it rained while I was in San Francisco last week. I don't even have a raincoat anymore.

And speaking of grim, I haven't been feeling any surging of the holiday spirit. I'm not sure I even understand what it means anymore. I'm not sad so much as puzzled.


I try to remember what it was like when I was a kid - god in heaven, was it twenty years ago? I suppose that number will only become more perplexing as I persist. I remember going to see the tree in Rockefeller Center, when we lived on the east coast. I still love doing that, seeing the tree and the skaters, smelling the chestnuts, walking through the double-line of stores, past the white angels and on up to St. Patrick's. That picture up above shows those same white angels with their trumpets - can you believe the decorations are still precisely the same after all these years?

But so much else has changed ... either that, or I've changed. I guess the two aren't mutually exclusive. But when did everything get so damned commercial? Check out this picture of my parents from way before I was born. I see a nice small trimmed tree in the back of a modestly decorated living room. (My father's mustaches are far from modest, though).

We used to pile in the car and go look at Christmas lights on Christmas Eve. Of course, gas costs way too much to do that now, and I feel like I gag on the ostentation displayed by the McMansions that surround Princeton. I mean, really - lights and blow-up presents and wicker lighted deer and banners and gaudy things I can't even identify? What is the point of it all?

I find myself beginning to sympathize with the "put Christ back in Christmas" movement. I am in no way a religious person, but I'm sickened with what our culture has turned Christmas into. My friends ask me what I want for Christmas; I truthfully reply "nothing." What does a Best Buy gift card have to do with the birth of Christ? I remember being in Christmas Mass once, and the priest supplemented the homily with a story about a mystery child helping Santa drive his sleigh ... and that baby was Baby Jesus. Even then, I was seriously confused. What on earth did the two things have to do with each other?

Want to do something for Christmas? Volunteer at a soup kitchen. Drop books or food at a local drive. Hell, spend 30 seconds online and make a donation that you'll never miss anyway. But do something to help someone else. Fight the cheapening of our culture - and our morals.

Yesterday I was in the mall getting a prescription for new contacts. While I was filling out the forms, the receptionist asked me off-handedly how my Christmas shopping was going. I told her I was done, then returned the question. She said in a voice without emotion, "Well, my kids are going to be disappointed this year. They're 7 and 5. I work all the time, and got no money to shop, so we got a nice tree with nothing underneath it. They're gonna hate me. It's hard being a single parent." I glanced at this woman who was clearly younger than me and had even less reason to be seasonally joyful than I do. What the hell was I supposed to say? I responded, "Seems like when I was a kid, Christmas was about being together, not about presents." She mumbled, "Times change."

I came home to be with my family and the people I love. Not to spend money on things no one needs anyway. At this point, even Festivus seems like a better idea to me.