Do you, dear reader, suffer from the anxiety of being an atheist at Christmas time?
Perhaps you have considered going the militant route: taking on a petulant air when you hear “Merry Christmas,” like George W. Bush facing down a British reporter at a press conference. Or giving as gifts copies of The God Delusion by Richard Dawkins. But you’ve concluded that, however militant you may or may not be about your belief in the nonexistence of deity, Christmas is a bad time to be shoving this belief in people’s faces — it would be impolite and counterproductive.
Or maybe you’ve dreamed that you can make the whole thing go away by simply ignoring it: declining invitations to parties, neglecting to give gifts or send cards, and entering as few stores as possible between Thanksgiving and December 26th. This strategy can never work, however: Even if you could avoid holiday socializing and — harder still — holiday marketing, you’d be dubbed a Scrooge for your nonparticipation and risk becoming a pariah.
Most probably you have decided you must simply accommodate Christmas one way or another. If you can’t beat ‘em, join ‘em: Enjoy the lights, the parties, the food, the good cheer. Most self-described Christians give barely a glance to the holiday’s religious significance, so there’s no need for you to trouble yourself about it. The Jews figured this out some time ago, so they invented Hanukah to give themselves an excuse to join in the general, mostly secular holiday celebration.
Still, you feel uneasy with the compromises you’ve made. You wonder if you’re acquiescing in the rising American theocracy. You are annoyed by Christmas music in public places. You worry about the Muslims, Buddhists, and Baha’is who might be feeling left out. And anyway, if Bill O’Reilly is so pro-Christmas that he’s invented a war against it just to cast himself as its greatest defender, shouldn’t you be against it? How can you really make peace with your holiday accommodationism?
A few suggestions, then, to get you through the most unavoidably religious time of the year:
- Donate to the ACLU and Americans United for Separation of Church and State. They aren’t actually fighting a war on Christmas (so much the pity), but they’ll try to keep your tax dollars from supporting a nativity scene in the town square, at least if it’s not accompanied by a menorah and some reindeer.
- While you’re passing out money, bypass the Salvation Army guy with the bell (annoying! and anti-gay!) and give to Oxfam or Heifer International (for the name alone, don’t you think?). This will quiet the nagging voice of guilt.
- Reflect for a moment on the pagan origins of Christmas, preferably while enjoying some eggnog or other intoxicant in honor of Dionysus, a Greek deity whose birthday was celebrated on December 25th by followers who no longer plow each other up in defense of their god’s honor.
- Enjoy the “holiday spirit”: People really do seem kinder in December, you can get in touch with friends and family you’ve missed throughout the year, and tipsy office parties + mistletoe just might = great makeout opportunities.
- Simplify your holiday celebration by getting rid of all the stuff you don’t enjoy. In particular, try to ease up on the consumerism of the season — although there’s no need to be puritanical about it, since giving gifts can be nice and getting them even nicer.
- Remind yourself that even Christian New Testament scholars have decided that the Bible’s narratives about the birth of Jesus are complete fabrications created for propaganda purposes. This thought should be followed by the reflection that just as children eventually stop believing in Santa Claus, educated adults can stop believing in silly stories about some made-up God, as you have done. And this further thought should create a feeling of smug self-satisfaction — which, after all, is half the fun of being an atheist in the first place, isn’t it?
After 6 years in retail Christmas is dead to me anyway. For me it is a time to give in to the whims and demands of harried shoppers who think the long lines and bad parking affect only them, and so they’re going to treat everybody else poorly to make sure they know how they’ve suffered.
That’s why Thanksgiving is the new Christmas for me.
I do like to donate to this charity though,
http://www.childsplaycharity.org/
which is a couple of guys in Seattle that run a comic/video game website and have set up a charity to donate toys and presents to children’s hospitals around the world. Even if I don’t believe in Christmas, I still believe in the children. I can’t believe I just wrote that with a straight face, but it’s true.
I, too, dream of a magical land where there are no shops sporting the over-manufacture of plastic and aluminum fake winter & christmas icons that end up in the sewers and landfills, no pressure to spend what little money I have on things that my friends and family don’t need, and a playlist that doesn’t repeat the same 10 songs over and over and over until you go completely maaaaaad. Perhaps the future of space travel is for me after all.
Hey, we had a fun discussion the other night about which Xmas song we hate the most.
At the time, I said “Jingle Bells,” but have revised to make my number one….most hated christmas song……..(pause as long as American Idol host…)
“We Wish You a Merry Christmas.”
And yours?
“Carol of the Bells.” It gets so frenetic. I especially hate hearing it in stores, where it’s the soundtrack to an orgiastic frenzy of commerce. Like the freaky Community Sing worship services in Brave New World. Could easily trigger a panic attack.
When I hear Alvin & The Chimpmunks singing Christmas carols, I want to punch somebody in the nose. And bless Eartha Kitt, but “Santa Baby” is awful, too.
O Holy Night is really nice, though, and the Charlie Brown music, and “It Came Upon a Midnight Clear.” It’s hard to be cynical when any of those are playing.
“Chipmunks,” that is. (Though chimpmunks sound kind of fun. I bet they’d be really good at climbing trees.)
This year I’ve been hearing “Jingle Bell Rock” everywhere, so it’s currently my most-hated. But yeah, “We Wish You…” is completely loathsome. Even for Christians, I’d imagine.
okay. i’m going to be the anti-grinch, but i kind of like christmas. i hate christmas shopping, but i like christmas parties and christmas presents. i don’t like the debt i inevitably incur, but what the hell.
we just marched through the lower east side yesterday with a 7″ tree on my shoulder. i felt so manly. almost as if i had felled it with my bare hands. it smells great.
and though i hate the overplayed songs, i love making mixes of christmas music. i like throwing in songs people don’t usually think of as xmas songs — big star’s “jesus christ,” tom waits’ “christmas card to a hooker in minneapolis.” that nutty flaming lips song about christmas in the zoo. for a while i got into those horrible rat pack christmas CDs they sell in starbucks. now those are the ones i’m refusing to listen to. they drive me nuts.
my favorite christmas song has always been the mormon tabernacle choir singing “sleigh ride.” i love the part where the whip cracks.
I’m just going to put in a word here for two of my favorite Christmas records: John Fahey’s Guitar Soli (there are 2 volumes, but pretty much everything on both has been re-released on one cd) and Odetta’s Christmas Spirituals (still not available on cd, as far as I know). Fahey did great versions of a number of the hated songs here (even Carol of the Bells). I kid you not, they’re really really good. The Odetta record is truly amazing. She’s got just one of the most remarkable voices I’ve ever heard, and she does great non-standard Christmas songs, just her voice, guitar and Bill Lee (Spike’s dad) on bass.
Despite my reverse-sourpuss attempt to get you people to hear the good in some Christmas music, I have my personal most hated song: The Twelve Days of Christmas. It’s got a lame melody, is just freaking interminable, and is too easily parodied (in ads, esp.).
Bryan, that was a seven inch tree?
whoops. how manly could that have made me feel? it was 7′.
bryan regrets the error.
oh, and we just got a piano. delivered saturday. and yes, we look forward to holiday singalongs. dave can stay home and the rest of you grinches can stay in CA. tim can come over.
i fully endorse the war on right wing christians and their media outlets. i endorse the war on christmas materialism. hell, the war on christmas itself sounds fun. but i love christmas itself. pass the eggnog, someone. or the jameson’s and ginger beer, my holiday favorite this year. sounds so harry potter.
Lisa, he has a right to feel manly no matter the size of the wood he wields.
Dave, your post made my little grinch-heart grow.
Is there any way to separate out what Christmas is supposed to mean on one level and what it is in reality? I mean, there’s nothing wrong with believing in children and pine trees and good will toward your fellow man. But if Fox News keeps screaming about a supposed war on Christmas then I will tend to side with Richard Dawkins after all.
In Capra’s Meet John Doe Gary Cooper gives this aw shucks populist speech over the radio about how we ought to look out for the little guy and how we remember to do that at Christmas and why can’t we do that all year, etc. Now I eat up Capra corn with the best of them and get all misty eyed when I have my civics students watch Jimmy Stewart go toe to toe with Claude Rains but the notion that we can turn a sentiment on and off because of the time of year is galling to me. We can screw over our fellow man, deprive him of civil liberties, throw he or she in a holding cell as a freakin’ enemy combatant for as long as we please but we should all praise the Lord and pass the ammo cause its’ Christmastime.
I will note that some more literal interpretations of the Bible do not place a special emphasis on December 25th but the general cultural machinery has annointed that date to go with all the trimmings so that’s what we get.
So who’s to blame? Charles Dickens?
My favorite Christmas song is Last Christmas by Wham. A shot by shot breakdown of the incredible video may well be my next post.
Bryan, it looks like we may be in town around New Year’s if you need any help moving that tree after Christmas.
hey man. thanks for all the support.
i love “last christmas.” it’s on my favorite self-curated x-mix.
I also have a couple favorite “off” Christmas songs: “Christmas in Jail, Ain’t That a Pain?” by Leroy Carr and “Another Lonely Christmas” by Prince. Do you happen to have the sheet music for them, Bryan? They’d be great for a sing-along. “Christmas Card from a Hooker in Mpls.” is one of my favorite Tom Waits songs, too.
… and don’t forget “Fairytale of New York” by The Pogues!
Like Bryan, I likes me some Christmas. Specially in New York. Even though I’m basically a Jew. I love Ella Fitzgerald’s “Have Yourself A Merry Little Christmas” and also her version of “What Are You Doing New Years?” Inevitably, I play these songs in July either consciously or in some sort of Sturges-simpatico-synchronicity.
As for worst, I think there’s a song called ‘Snow’, Pandora can probably correct me on the name, but at work we just call it that Snow song. I literally die a little each time it’s played.
And I second Fairytale of New York for favorite non-traditional song. Traditional, it’s got to be Sleigh Ride while re-living the wonderful and heart-warming scene from Mr. Kruger’s Christmas.
the wonderful and heart-warming scene from Mr. Kruger’s Christmas
Mark, you are a total sap.
I loved Mr. Krueger’s Christmas and had completely forgotten about the importance of Mo-Tab’s Sleigh Ride to the film. I wonder if it’s on DVD? YES! Santa? (Or would it traumatize my secular children?)
Okay, this is where non-ex-LDSers such as I start to feel like we’ve been seriously mistaken by thinking that we could possibly share a culture with those of you who have been in and out of that there religion. I likes me my (admittedly very secular) Christmas, enjoy listening to some of its religious music, and I even admit to liking It’s a Wonderful Life. I haven’t seen Mr. Krueger’s Christmas (had never even heard of it), so I can’t speak from experience and shouldn’t dismiss it out of hand, but from all the descriptions I’ve read just now, it seems really creepy, like an episode of The Twilight Zone from Bizarro World.
I’m a university English teacher in China and have found myself explaining the holiday season to my students. Trying to give them a sense of what holidays are about makes it clear that even Christmas is a pretty secular holiday. I told them for much of America Christmas has become like Halloween: it has a variety of religious origins, some of which some folks still celebrate, but has transcended these beliefs in favor of more secular experiences. Namely, Christmas has become all about family and honoring/spoiling loved ones in the same way that Halloween is no longer about getting souls out of pergatory and honoring various spirits but instead is an excuse to dress up and tell stories.
I didn’t realize that Mr. Kruger’s x-mas was an LDS film. It was shown on television when I was a kid from what I can recall, though I do remember it having the MoTab Choir in it.
On a more secular note, does anybody know about the Dinner for One comedy sketch? The European version of “Herr Kruger’s Weihnachten”, if you will.
yeah — Mr K was Mos in the mainstream, made-for-TV-movie, starring Jimmy Stewart. You NEED to watch it, Wager. Ebay!
I have been sitting back and watching this conversation unfold. I think I’m on the liking Christmas side of the fence. It’s somewhat embarrassing to admit it, but whatever.
I guess I like Christmas because I really like my family. This isn’t to say that if you don’t like Christmas, you hate your mother or anything like that. It’s just that when I think about the holiday, I think about sitting jammed on the couch between a couple of people I love, but only see about once a year, sipping on really good scotch (usually the only time I go neet), and laughing at really ridiculous things. How the heck could this be anything but heavenly?
My favorite “Christmas” song is “The Sound of Silence” by S & GF. Yes, I know it wasn’t written as such, but that was always the record my dad fell back on for quiet family time. We usually ended Christmas night with a spin of TSOS, while lying on the floor looking up at the Christmas light’s reflections of the ceiling. Ah to have 25 year old parents in the ‘70s.
I can’t believe it–I miss one day on the whatsit and my record club pick for this Saturday, “Fairytale of New York,” gets totally outed! Fine–I’m going with “Christmas in Hollis” as the best ever, then. And I have to agree, though I’m with Lawrence Ferlinghetti in “Christ Climbed Down” for how stoopid it’s all become, I can’t help but love the holiday that means I get to pull out all the old ornaments and laugh hysterically with my sisters over who made which ornament, and try to decipher the fake names and in-jokes on all the gift tags. I hate what Christmas means to a lot of people (great call-out on “Christmas spirit,” Ruben), but I love what it means to me.
I’ll say it loud and proud (and much to her cringiness): I love Stephanie Wells, and all that means and all it entails. I am so honored to be with you for the sisterly laughs, even though I rarely understand the Wells girls’ lingo.
Thanks for the kind words about Heifer International. I joined Heifer as new media director last year and really appreciate it when someone blogs about us.
We have a new BlogRaising program that lets bloggers like you help us get the word out about Heifer and raise the money we need to do our work. To learn more, just go to http://www.heifer.org/onlinecommunityfundraising
I hope you are able to take part.
Again thanks for the good words.
So this show at the Guggenhiem is pretty good. Spnish Painting from El Grecco to Picasso. (as an aside it’s amazing how good Salvador Dali hold us) but as to this post the thnig that makes is really amazing are the crucifixtion paintings installed at the top of the ramp.
Spanish painting is always underpinned by an awareness of hard-ass counter reformation Catholicism. The resricted palette, the subject matter, the implied suffering and ultimately . . . Dali, a recognition of insanity and a rejection.
So this show is really interesting because you wind your way up the ramp with images from this culture and then at the top BAM! Jesus! In all his glorified gore. Amazing!