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| Artist's interpretation of my gayyyy Christmas tree to go with my gayyyy scarf. |
Seriously, though, we actually do have a Christmas tree this year, and it has a faaaaabulous rainbow tinsel garland. But you'd never know that Christmas is an equal-opportunity holiday. Why? Because it ain't. That's right, kids, Christmas isn't for everyone. And it excludes lots more people than just non-Christians.
For starters, Santa gives more presents to rich kids than poor ones. Santa's kind of a dick that way. Illustrative anecdote:
In the third grade, Cole Slater, sporting his flat-top haircut, came up to me on the playground and asked, “What’d you get for Christmas?” I knew it was a trick, so I tried to avoid answering. “A few things,” I said (reality: A heap of stuff – probably a dollhouse, some footie PJs, more candy than a full-grown adult, let alone a 7-year-old, could ever possibly eat, an assortment of various other trinkets). “Why, what’d you get?”
“DIDDLY SQUAT!” he screamed so vehemently that his face turned red and blotchy.
Then he ran off to retrieve a basketball so he could spend the rest of recess hurling it at my head. Man that kid was pissed. Although in his case, he didn’t get any Christmas presents because he was a gen-u-wine jerkalope, there are plenty of angelic little sh*ts out there that do, indeed, get diddly squat for no other reason than Santa is not a fan of the Great Unwasheds. Christmas is for the rich.
Christmas is also for the straights. Specifically, straights with kids. And in particular the holiday is FOR children, not adults. Woe be to ye who is:
a) QueerDon’t believe me? Turn on your TV. Watch the onslaught of happy (white upper-middle-class headed by heterosexual couples with two point five tow-headed children and one golden Labrador) families (read: children, because everyone knows a family ain’t a family without kids) tearing into boxes stuffed with goodies from your favorite Holiday Retailers.
b) Childless
c) An adult
d) All three
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| Even non-humanoid illustrations are heteronormative. |
What if you’re the adult female part of that hetero-happyland? Well then lucky you! You get to do all the work:
It’s the lady of the house’s job to make her kids happy – nay, enchanted – on Christmas, because kids that aren’t absolutely over the moon on Christmas get taken away by child protective services here in Amerikuh. Also she’s in charge of mailing all the cards to her family AND her husband’s family, as he certainly can’t be bothered with such niceties, as well as cooking, cleaning, and arranging the familial obligations and travel plans. He will carry the tree in, though. What a mensch!
All that being said, I do enjoy Christmas (particularly the excuse to mail stacks of cards to folks). It's not my favorite (that's my birthday, naturally, followed by Halloween), but any reason to gather with the three Fs (friends, family, food) is OK in my book. Passover, Christmas, Tuesday night potluck, pub crawl debauch, whatever, I dig it. What are your favorite holidays/holiday traditions? Do you notice the homogenous target demographic of "The Holidays," and how does it make you feel? And what are you doing today, tomorrow, and the day after?
My favourite thing about Christmas or any holiday is always the food.
ReplyDeleteI'm not a fan of exchanging gifts. You hit on most of the reasons why.
So I'll be eating a hearty meal this weekend. Not sure what else is on the agenda - maybe renting a few movies? :)
I'd say my favorite holiday is Thanksgiving. Family and food. My mom is probably the best cook ever.
ReplyDeleteI'm also lucky that in my family my mom does most of the cooking because she wants to and is just a better cook than my dad. He always steps up with setting up the table and cleanup after dinner.
I have noticed the "homogenous target demographic," but it doesn't make me feel any more or less out of step than I do the other months of the year. Everything is geared toward families and that's not going to change in my lifetime. I can't really speak to the misogynist angle because I tend to think women, on average, have more interesting, complete lives than men, regardless of who's sending Christmas cards.
ReplyDeleteAs for what I'm doing today, tomorrow and the day after...I don't know. It really is just another day for me, except I'll play some holiday music in my apartment and think about where I'm going to have coffee on Christmas morning. Options are limited. Merry Christmas AIM and have a happy new year -- one that hopefully includes many happy hours.
Peg and I used to mark Dec. 25 by renting the least Christmassy movies we could think of--one year it was samurai flicks, another year "The Sorrow and the Pity," a four-hour documentary about the wartime Occupation in France. Another we thought "Christmas, turkey... let's watch big-budget flops!" so we got "Waterworld" and the Demi Moore "Scarlet Letter" and "Ishtar" etc. Turned out there's a reason they flopped: they're terrible. We could only stand about 20 minutes of each so there we were at 4:30 pm fresh out of movies. Now we have a small but tasty collection of DVDs including some deeply cynical, fatalistic noirs like "Nightmare Alley" and "Born to Kill"--not a twinkle to be seen.
ReplyDeleteWish you could have been at our Xmas celebration yesterday. People of all sorts were there, including my gay daughter and her two kids and some vegetarians, too. All white people, but you can't have everything.
ReplyDeleteI call this diversity, Seattle style.
Hmmmm. I like Christmas okay, except for the Jesus parts. Fortunately my family doesn't observe the Jesus parts so much as we observe the annual Rite of Gorging on Christmas Candy. The only holiday I struggle with liking is New Years. There's all this build up, every friggin' year, and then suddenly it's another year and your still drunk like it's last year and everything is still the same and not somehow magically different. It better be magically different this year, dammit. I will settle for nothing less than magical differences.
ReplyDeletei am a huge Christmas freakkkk. i love Christmas music, i love giving gifts...i love seeing everyone's faces light up. Everyone's jolly and good and pretty and perfect and Christmassy.
ReplyDeletei love corny stuff...like trimming the tree, drinking children beverages... finding old sentimental ornaments from childhood or stories and tall tales around the breakfast nook - "remember that time you guys hid the presents? well, we opened them all before to see if we got everything we asked for"
spoiled much? yes...but the real meaning of Christmas isn't gifts...it is love: pure joy...pure heart...family..friends . and this is why i love Christmas.
One of the things I really like about visiting your blog is you always make me think about things differently!!
ReplyDeleteI am a huge fan of Christmas, probably because I get to spoil my kids. In truth, I also give generously to my husband too, and something I really like is that our kids give thoughtful gifts to us too.
It strikes me that I often hear nowadays, that children do nothing for their parents at Christmas, that partners ignore each other and only spend on the kids.
Why? Kids giving presents teaches them to think about those who care for them, to show their love and respect. My 5yo was as excited about handing over her gift as she was about receiving the gifts we had carefully picked out for her.
And why would you not buy for your partner? They definitely deserve to be shown affection and thought. It doesn't have to be about money, it can be something that shows effort, love and thought.
Take care and hope you have a great New Year!!
Lydia, I'm right there with you on the food! I do enjoy gifting but it can get a bit crazy at the holidays, which is why I like birthdays so much - they're dedicated to one person, so you can really take the time to find them something amazing.
ReplyDeleteGam - I love Thanksgiving, too. It's entirely about food, what's not to love? I mean other than the historical aspect... it's the only time of year when pie is mandatory.
Steven - What do you mean, women have more interesting, complete lives? Do elaborate! Did you find coffee on Christmas? I make mine at home so don't usually have to hunt it down on holidays, but I did manage to get all my grocery shopping done at the local Cheep Food Emporium.
John - we took a page from your book this year and had a loosely Christmas-themed movie marathon - Die Hard, Scrooged and Gremlins. Naturally I fell asleep halfway through them all while everyone else made up awesome drinking games to go with them.
Hattie, writer, sarsm: D'awww Christmas is pretty great when you put it that way. :) I don't like eggnog but I can get behind hot chocolate and hot buttered rums. Cheesy things are also pretty great.
ReplyDeletePon Keen: May 2012 be MAGICAL and AWESOMER than all the other years! One thing that will be different this year: People will probably stop talking about Mayans in 350 or so days.
Sarah: it's a whole new year--why not start it with some new music? Those iTunes downloads are still waiting for you--the Apple Store actually calls them "unredeemed" which strongly implies they need you to save their souls.
ReplyDelete