There's no need to wrap Christmas into a pretty little box

It’s that time of year again.  The time when – well, a lot of people don’t really seem to know for sure anymore.  But parents max out their credit cards on Legos and Barbies for their fat kids and compete in a proverbial pissing contest with the neighbours over whose blow-up Santa is jollier. 

And we call it Christmas.

To me, the story of three kings following a star to find Jesus in a stable with a bunch of animals and give him stuff that no newborn would ever need is as tall a tale as a big fat man in a red suit delivering gifts made by elves in a sleigh pulled by flying deer over the course of one night (even with the time zone changes, as my cunning younger self once deduced).

But to me, Christmas isn’t a war of morality and shouldn’t ever be. 

I’ve chosen to give Christmas its own meaning.  I’m not putting any patents on it or anything, but it’s personal enough to give a shot of liveliness and wonder back to the beaten-down holiday.

I went to a Catholic high school.  Yes, the ones with private school buses.  But besides having to wear uniforms and take a mandatory religion class every year over another that might come in somewhat handy later in life, I did learn a valuable lesson – the ability to question and/or dismiss something that surrounds me, even during the impressionable days of youth.  And I did get a pretty good handle on what Christmas is "really about," perhaps a crucial step above what my old friend Linus had previously taught me.

Christmas, to me, is about finding something nice for the closest people to me that I care about the very most, not because “it’s better to give than to receive,” but because they deserve it.  Let them enjoy those things that will make them happy but wouldn’t buy themselves, either because they can’t afford it or because they can’t bring themselves to out of fear of later regretting the deficit in their bank accounts.

To me, it’s about gathering at my Oma’s house for a Christmas Eve feast to enjoy the schnitzels and dumplings and all the things she can give us 50 years after leaving Austria to start a new life in Canada.  It’s about enjoying the one time where everyone is together, and everyone is happy, and no one has anywhere else they could possibly be in the whole world.

Christmas Eve is when I stuff my body with food, beer and wine and doze off on the couch watching It’s a Wonderful Life, listening to generations above me talk about the film like they were there themselves and hearing how special the movie and the message and the time of year are to them, too.  It’s when I regain full consciousness to the sound of my Oma thrusting dessert in my face, unable to cope with the thought that I might at some point in my life be hungry.

And then it’s about waking up in my old bed that I slept in when I was four years old, my six-foot frame dangling off the edge of the end board, just so I can emerge from my room to find this week’s chocolates and this year’s shampoo stuffed in my stocking and make my way down for breakfast with the good old camcorder on for some reason, even with my apartment just a 10-minute drive away.

It’s things like these that make your Christmas... honest. 

Now unless you’re my brother or sister, your story won’t be the same.  But you have your own.  It might be buried under mounds of holiday-shopping stress or resentment of being dragged to church, or even that your family just tends to piss you off, but it’s in there.  Hold on to it.

Because it won’t be that way forever.