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livLast year, siderea wrote a thinky post about Why Christmas hurts, and gives the answer
Several people pointed out tosiderea that there's another reason to find Christmas hard, even if your family is entirely happy and functional, which is that Christmas gets Christian cultural hegemony all over people who aren't Christian. Christmas-1, the religious festival, I find largely unproblematic. But for me, Christmas-2, the "season of goodwill", has always been troubling in ways I find it slightly scary to articulate.
I think just about the first social rule I remember consciously learning is that I'm not allowed to have negative feelings about Christmas. Children's media is absolutely full of examples of wicked awful people who don't like Christmas. Scrooge. The Grinch. The generic bad guy in every generic children's TV show. Because what sort of monster doesn't like peace'n'goodwill,
Sometimes children my age (I mean, from pre-school and onwards), would innocently ask me, don't you feel left out not getting Christmas presents / not having Santa? Kids would generally accept the answer that it didn't bother me because it had never been part of my life, and anyway I (happily) wasn't short of toys and gifts, they just didn't arrive on 25 December. But if an adult asked me that question, oh, it was a trap. I couldn't say I did feel left out, because that would be admitting that my minority culture was inferior to their mainstream Christian one. And I couldn't say I didn't mind, because then I was implicitly criticizing Christmas, I was being a Grinch by not thinking Christmas is the most wonderful thing ever. It's never really stopped. People still ask me, don't you feel left out when everybody is celebrating Christmas? As an adult, I sometimes get the even more Zugzwang question: do you feel bad when everybody keeps going on about Christmas around you? I do think that often that kind of question comes from a well-meaning place, but honestly there's no good answer. Mustn't-be-a-Grinch, you know? I can't say that constant barrage of Christmas all through November and December and half of January is annoying, because then I'm criticizing goodwill and kindness. And I can't say that it doesn't bother me without seeming like I'm downplaying my Jewish identity.
Or equally, people attempting to reassure me that Christmas isn't really a Christian festival, it's totally Pagan these days. I mean, for one thing I don't have any more desire to celebrate a Pagan festival like Yule than I do a Christian festival, and this kind of reassurance doesn't actually make me feel more included. If you're inviting me as a guest to your cultural experience, great, that feels like real generosity. But if you're insisting that I'm actually an insider to a cultural context I don't in fact feel connected to, then you're just denying my reality and my heritage.
I think part of my problem is that there's also a Christmas-2a, which I do in fact rather dislike. The Christmas which is all about competitive shopping, advertising getting louder and more aggressive, endless repeats of soppy and annoying songs, forced jollity like work Christmas parties, eating too much of food I don't really like. I can't object to that too forcefully, though, because it's inseparable from Christmas-2 in most people's minds, and being against having all that shopping in my face for weeks isn't allowed if I'm the only non-Christian in the group, because it looks like objecting to people being nice to each other, having fun, giving presents.
I'm reminded of a trans acquaintance who expresses political despair saying, "I hate this country!". And I also experience a lot of political despair at the moment, but I realize that my whole life's conditioning means I can't possibly agree with her. I can't hate the country, because then I'm the stereotype of the disloyal Jew, the rootless cosmopolitan, I'm not sufficiently grateful that my country "let" my ancestors settle here and "saved" my people from fascism. In the same way, I can't dislike any aspect of Christmas because I would be an uppity, ungrateful minority. But I can't like it too much because it's not for me, because that would give too many people an excuse to try to save my soul, whether in the direct religious proselytizing sense, or in the secular "goodwill" sense of making me give up my identity so I can be a properly generous and kind person.
Contrary to the assumptions both within the Jewish community and by outsiders, this whole business has got much easier since I started dating people who celebrate Christmas. My husband's family definitely celebrate Christmas-3, the genuinely secular festival of families. And they invite me because as the partner of a relative I count as family. That's all there is to it, there's no secret proselytizing agenda, they're not Christian at all nor trying to persuade me to join their religion, and they're also not trying to persuade me that the imperative of peace'n'goodwill means you have to assimilate to Christian-flavoured culture. And my Christian partners definitely celebrate Christmas-1, the actual religious festival. Because we are generally careful to respect each other's religions, I'm able to join in as a guest and a loved member of the family, in just the same way that they join in with Shabbat or Pesach or other Jewish festivals. On a broad historical and social level there is of course a power dynamic, but for our particular polycule the relationship feels reciprocal and symmetrical. So yes, I can confidently say in response to Siderea's post that I have no problem with religious Christmas-1 or family-centric Christmas-3. I have a problem with Christmas-2, but it's a problem I can't talk about because what kind of monster objects to kindness and goodwill?
OK, but now Christmas is going to happen during a pandemic. And now I'm going to be a bad minority and say that I do in fact have negative emotions about Christmas. I am extremely fearful of Christmas and the Christmas season, and I am pretty angry, actually, about the way Christmas is being handled politically and discussed on social media. I thinksiderea's three Christmas model is a useful frame for thinking about how much of a mess we're in.
It is an extremely bad idea for the entire country to spend a month or more flocking to crowded shops and eating celebratory meals in pubs and restaurants. It is an extremely bad idea for everybody to travel all over the country to visit their relatives, to gather families in a way that will mix the older generation with kids who have been in school and young people who have been in massive infection hotspots on university campuses. And the purpose of this travel and mixing is for people to spend hours indoors together cooking and eating festive meals, giving each other hugs, and generally behaving in the most infection-spreading ways possible. This seems absolutely obvious, except that nobody wants to accept the factual reality that it's incredibly dangerous, because Christmas is the season-of-goodwill and restricting Christmas is like restricting kindness and love.
I've seen several Christians commenting that it's not possible to cancel Christmas, no government restrictions and no virus can stop them from celebrating the birth of Jesus in their hearts. This suggests that pure Christmas-1 is mostly ok, though I imagine it will be hard to be excluded from in-person church and the musical elements that are an important part of Christmas ritual for many people. But I think the people who are satisfied that nothing can cancel Christmas aren't really thinking about Christmas-3, the festival of families. Not being allowed to spend time with your family at a significant time which should be about togetherness is really, truly a hard thing for many people. OK, for many, Christmas-3 isn't the real true Meaning-Of-Christmas, because the Meaning is either Christmas-1, Jesus' birth, for religious Christians, or Christmas-2, peace and goodwill, for secular people from Christian-influenced culture. I think, as an outsider, that it's a mistake to downplay the grief of being deprived for Christmas-3 just because it isn't officially defined as the real meaning. Further, people don't necessarily think very clearly about the three Christmases being separate things, so being deprived of family gatherings or present shopping or parties may in fact feel like being deprived of one's religious holiday or season of goodwill.
So far, so analytical. The reason I'm terrified and angry is because there's so much magical thinking going on. Literally, lots of people think of Christmas as "magic", all the cultural stories about Christmas-2 especially are about how kindness and inclusion and generosity create "miracles" and fix all problems. So it's not surprising people therefore find it impossible to hold in their heads the idea that Christmas could be dangerous or harmful. And government messaging is encouraging this. The suggestion of a "Christmas Truce" like the romantic idea of the break in fighting on 25 December during WW1, as if you can make a truce with a virus. The press releases saying, we're going to have to relax restrictions for Christmas because nobody would be able to bear staying apart from their relatives and would all break any restrictions imposed anyway. Hint hint, we're totally expecting you to do your patriotic duty to the season of goodwill by ignoring any safety precautions. And please spend lots of money proving how much goodwill you have while you're at it.
I'm not actually particularly annoyed that Christmas gets priority over minority festivals. Because it was better for us to be mandated to stay home for Rosh haShanah than it is for Christians to be nudged and encouraged to infect each other for the sake of some nebulous concept of goodwill. I wish Eid gatherings had been cancelled through a sensible process including a parliamentary debate and plenty of notice and clear information about the restrictions, not through a Twitter announcement at 10 pm the day before the festival. But I don't wish Eid had been allowed to go ahead because it's a special day so we should suspend public health measures for it.
Don't even get me started on the absolutely disastrous plans for sending students all over the country so that they can be home with their families for Christmas (because obviously all students are 18-year-olds who are missing their mums, and all students celebrate Christmas in exactly the culturally prescribed ways). But between 'send students home' week from 9 December, and 'suspend all public health measures' because of the magic of Christmas, I'm honestly thinking that I need to completely shield at home for the whole of December and possibly into the new year. And, well, I'm someone who can, I'm not being forced to work in retail or hospitality because you can't have goodwill without 50% of annual income generated during December.
Call me a Grinch if you like. But this year I'm staying home, and I'm virtually attending Limmud so I can have three days break from people who want to drag me into their peace'n'goodwill.
siderea wrote a thinky post about Why Christmas hurts, and gives the answer The pain of Christmas - of third Christmas, the festival of families – is disappointment.. I found the classification of three Christmases very useful: religious, secular but spiritual, and the holiday of families. And it feels really poignant this year because, well, there's a pandemic, and the festival of families, above all things, is going to be really seriously disrupted.
Several people pointed out to
siderea that there's another reason to find Christmas hard, even if your family is entirely happy and functional, which is that Christmas gets Christian cultural hegemony all over people who aren't Christian. Christmas-1, the religious festival, I find largely unproblematic. But for me, Christmas-2, the "season of goodwill", has always been troubling in ways I find it slightly scary to articulate. I think just about the first social rule I remember consciously learning is that I'm not allowed to have negative feelings about Christmas. Children's media is absolutely full of examples of wicked awful people who don't like Christmas. Scrooge. The Grinch. The generic bad guy in every generic children's TV show. Because what sort of monster doesn't like peace'n'goodwill,
charitable giving and forgiveness, kindness and thoughtfulness and making other people happy? The problem is that, not having Siderea's incisive classification to refer to, I often found that peace and goodwill and generosity and bonhomie of Christmas-2 were tied up with the Christian festival, Christmas-1, which is very much about celebrating how great it is not to be like me and my family.
Sometimes children my age (I mean, from pre-school and onwards), would innocently ask me, don't you feel left out not getting Christmas presents / not having Santa? Kids would generally accept the answer that it didn't bother me because it had never been part of my life, and anyway I (happily) wasn't short of toys and gifts, they just didn't arrive on 25 December. But if an adult asked me that question, oh, it was a trap. I couldn't say I did feel left out, because that would be admitting that my minority culture was inferior to their mainstream Christian one. And I couldn't say I didn't mind, because then I was implicitly criticizing Christmas, I was being a Grinch by not thinking Christmas is the most wonderful thing ever. It's never really stopped. People still ask me, don't you feel left out when everybody is celebrating Christmas? As an adult, I sometimes get the even more Zugzwang question: do you feel bad when everybody keeps going on about Christmas around you? I do think that often that kind of question comes from a well-meaning place, but honestly there's no good answer. Mustn't-be-a-Grinch, you know? I can't say that constant barrage of Christmas all through November and December and half of January is annoying, because then I'm criticizing goodwill and kindness. And I can't say that it doesn't bother me without seeming like I'm downplaying my Jewish identity.
Or equally, people attempting to reassure me that Christmas isn't really a Christian festival, it's totally Pagan these days. I mean, for one thing I don't have any more desire to celebrate a Pagan festival like Yule than I do a Christian festival, and this kind of reassurance doesn't actually make me feel more included. If you're inviting me as a guest to your cultural experience, great, that feels like real generosity. But if you're insisting that I'm actually an insider to a cultural context I don't in fact feel connected to, then you're just denying my reality and my heritage.
I think part of my problem is that there's also a Christmas-2a, which I do in fact rather dislike. The Christmas which is all about competitive shopping, advertising getting louder and more aggressive, endless repeats of soppy and annoying songs, forced jollity like work Christmas parties, eating too much of food I don't really like. I can't object to that too forcefully, though, because it's inseparable from Christmas-2 in most people's minds, and being against having all that shopping in my face for weeks isn't allowed if I'm the only non-Christian in the group, because it looks like objecting to people being nice to each other, having fun, giving presents.
I'm reminded of a trans acquaintance who expresses political despair saying, "I hate this country!". And I also experience a lot of political despair at the moment, but I realize that my whole life's conditioning means I can't possibly agree with her. I can't hate the country, because then I'm the stereotype of the disloyal Jew, the rootless cosmopolitan, I'm not sufficiently grateful that my country "let" my ancestors settle here and "saved" my people from fascism. In the same way, I can't dislike any aspect of Christmas because I would be an uppity, ungrateful minority. But I can't like it too much because it's not for me, because that would give too many people an excuse to try to save my soul, whether in the direct religious proselytizing sense, or in the secular "goodwill" sense of making me give up my identity so I can be a properly generous and kind person.
Contrary to the assumptions both within the Jewish community and by outsiders, this whole business has got much easier since I started dating people who celebrate Christmas. My husband's family definitely celebrate Christmas-3, the genuinely secular festival of families. And they invite me because as the partner of a relative I count as family. That's all there is to it, there's no secret proselytizing agenda, they're not Christian at all nor trying to persuade me to join their religion, and they're also not trying to persuade me that the imperative of peace'n'goodwill means you have to assimilate to Christian-flavoured culture. And my Christian partners definitely celebrate Christmas-1, the actual religious festival. Because we are generally careful to respect each other's religions, I'm able to join in as a guest and a loved member of the family, in just the same way that they join in with Shabbat or Pesach or other Jewish festivals. On a broad historical and social level there is of course a power dynamic, but for our particular polycule the relationship feels reciprocal and symmetrical. So yes, I can confidently say in response to Siderea's post that I have no problem with religious Christmas-1 or family-centric Christmas-3. I have a problem with Christmas-2, but it's a problem I can't talk about because what kind of monster objects to kindness and goodwill?
OK, but now Christmas is going to happen during a pandemic. And now I'm going to be a bad minority and say that I do in fact have negative emotions about Christmas. I am extremely fearful of Christmas and the Christmas season, and I am pretty angry, actually, about the way Christmas is being handled politically and discussed on social media. I think
siderea's three Christmas model is a useful frame for thinking about how much of a mess we're in. It is an extremely bad idea for the entire country to spend a month or more flocking to crowded shops and eating celebratory meals in pubs and restaurants. It is an extremely bad idea for everybody to travel all over the country to visit their relatives, to gather families in a way that will mix the older generation with kids who have been in school and young people who have been in massive infection hotspots on university campuses. And the purpose of this travel and mixing is for people to spend hours indoors together cooking and eating festive meals, giving each other hugs, and generally behaving in the most infection-spreading ways possible. This seems absolutely obvious, except that nobody wants to accept the factual reality that it's incredibly dangerous, because Christmas is the season-of-goodwill and restricting Christmas is like restricting kindness and love.
I've seen several Christians commenting that it's not possible to cancel Christmas, no government restrictions and no virus can stop them from celebrating the birth of Jesus in their hearts. This suggests that pure Christmas-1 is mostly ok, though I imagine it will be hard to be excluded from in-person church and the musical elements that are an important part of Christmas ritual for many people. But I think the people who are satisfied that nothing can cancel Christmas aren't really thinking about Christmas-3, the festival of families. Not being allowed to spend time with your family at a significant time which should be about togetherness is really, truly a hard thing for many people. OK, for many, Christmas-3 isn't the real true Meaning-Of-Christmas, because the Meaning is either Christmas-1, Jesus' birth, for religious Christians, or Christmas-2, peace and goodwill, for secular people from Christian-influenced culture. I think, as an outsider, that it's a mistake to downplay the grief of being deprived for Christmas-3 just because it isn't officially defined as the real meaning. Further, people don't necessarily think very clearly about the three Christmases being separate things, so being deprived of family gatherings or present shopping or parties may in fact feel like being deprived of one's religious holiday or season of goodwill.
So far, so analytical. The reason I'm terrified and angry is because there's so much magical thinking going on. Literally, lots of people think of Christmas as "magic", all the cultural stories about Christmas-2 especially are about how kindness and inclusion and generosity create "miracles" and fix all problems. So it's not surprising people therefore find it impossible to hold in their heads the idea that Christmas could be dangerous or harmful. And government messaging is encouraging this. The suggestion of a "Christmas Truce" like the romantic idea of the break in fighting on 25 December during WW1, as if you can make a truce with a virus. The press releases saying, we're going to have to relax restrictions for Christmas because nobody would be able to bear staying apart from their relatives and would all break any restrictions imposed anyway. Hint hint, we're totally expecting you to do your patriotic duty to the season of goodwill by ignoring any safety precautions. And please spend lots of money proving how much goodwill you have while you're at it.
I'm not actually particularly annoyed that Christmas gets priority over minority festivals. Because it was better for us to be mandated to stay home for Rosh haShanah than it is for Christians to be nudged and encouraged to infect each other for the sake of some nebulous concept of goodwill. I wish Eid gatherings had been cancelled through a sensible process including a parliamentary debate and plenty of notice and clear information about the restrictions, not through a Twitter announcement at 10 pm the day before the festival. But I don't wish Eid had been allowed to go ahead because it's a special day so we should suspend public health measures for it.
Don't even get me started on the absolutely disastrous plans for sending students all over the country so that they can be home with their families for Christmas (because obviously all students are 18-year-olds who are missing their mums, and all students celebrate Christmas in exactly the culturally prescribed ways). But between 'send students home' week from 9 December, and 'suspend all public health measures' because of the magic of Christmas, I'm honestly thinking that I need to completely shield at home for the whole of December and possibly into the new year. And, well, I'm someone who can, I'm not being forced to work in retail or hospitality because you can't have goodwill without 50% of annual income generated during December.
Call me a Grinch if you like. But this year I'm staying home, and I'm virtually attending Limmud so I can have three days break from people who want to drag me into their peace'n'goodwill.
