Reclaiming Christmas

Last month, members of Unity Church Unitarian made the papers for an effort to "reclaim Christmas" from the commercialism and frenzy of activity that has come to characterize it for all but the most disciplined Americans. A service that members arranged for "Black Friday" made the papers, TV and MPR.

While the media coverage tended to emphasize an aspect of the effort that was not that important to me (organizers' efforts to dissuade people from mindlessly shopping on Black Friday) the invitation to reconsider what Christmas can mean was really useful.

The invitation sounds so simple, and it is--after thinking about what makes you tired or unhappy during this season, list the things that you truly enjoy about Christmas. Eliminate the former as much as possible, and concentrate on the latter. I realized that the gift lists I'd compile in the anxious month preceding Christmas were simply another way to Keep Busy; that Tony was tired of writing bad-tempered doggerel from "Santa" on the tags for all those gifts; and most importantly, that Laney and Anna didn't need or even want anything from a pile of stuff heaped under a tree.

So I concentrated this year on just a few things. I made a simple light display, hanging a large white star-shaped paper lantern on the porch, along with the usual twinkly white lights. We got a free tree from Hermes nursery on Christmas Eve and decorated it that same night. I hung the girls' stockings in the kitchen windows and have been putting token "gifts from Santa" in them every evening. Nothing big, mostly stuff I got in one short shopping trip to the CVS pharmacy on Snelling on December 23 --lip balm, a set of hair clips, a magazine.

At Laney's suggestion, we resolved to send a big box of school and art supplies to the little girls at Eklavya School in India, where she taught this summer. We've been slowly amassing a collection over the past week, and will finish up today with a shopping trip to Michaels', for play dough, markers and stickers. I'm not sure how we'll send the stuff; maybe with the next volunteer who goes to the school, or maybe we will splurge on postage to get it there sooner. But it's nice to imagine the glitter and stickers and colored markers being used by little girls who, according to Laney, are awarded exactly one pencil apiece at the beginning of each school term.

We've mostly just hung out together, watching movies and music videos on TV, playing card games (we had a Dutch Blitz tournament Christmas Eve with Izzy Wexler Mann and his family), eating and talking around the kitchen table. And that's pretty much been it. Not a perfect Christmas, and vastly different from last year's holiday (which we spent exploring the Amazonian jungle at Noel Kempf park in northern Bolivia.) But a good start to reclaiming the Christmas motifs that really matter—de-light, generosity, and being together without much to-do.