To begin I just want to clarify to all of you that while my favorite color is green my heart is already abnormally big so there is no way that I can be the Grinch. That being said I confess I am generally not the most enthusiastic about celebrating the holidays for extensive periods of time. As such the Filipino traditions of Christmas celebrating is a bit unusual to me. You see they began putting up their Christmas decorations in September; trees, wreaths, manger scenes, and the lights, lights, lights. Flashing like rave for four months straight, I fear that my brain will not be able to focus properly on anything.
You see I developed a rule in 1910 after the founding of Hallmark, I will not even consider another holiday until the one preceding it has passed. I won’t celebrate Thanksgiving until Halloween is over, I won’t celebrate Guy Fawkes Day until the Norse Winter Nights celebration is over. But this notion of celebrating a holiday almost 4 months before the event is simply baffling.
In some way it makes sense as this way the focus of Christmas, gift buying, can have enough time to take hold of everyone. This way no one is forgotten about as a person has 4 months to peruse through sales and can do ample research on what the gift would be most appreciated. That is what Christmas is about isn’t it, spreading the joy of consumerism amongst each other so as to keep the economy in the black?
And it seems that people are forgetting the meaning of Christmas more and more these days as economies around the world continue to struggle. Countries like Ireland, Spain, and Greece are more desperate for Santa and his reindeer than ever. If this is not fixed quickly than this will only be the stone that unleashes the avalanche. I’ve seen it before. There was a time that human’s spent weeks at a time in reverence of Dionysius the god of wine and revelry. Now many scholars say that these rituals were religious in nature and in some ways they were. However there was a greater symbolism at work, that of human cooperation and the benefits of taking it easy every once in a while. There are still remnants of these traditions found in St. Patrick’s Day, Oktoberfest, and a small sect hidden in the woods of the Midwest United States celebrates a week of festivities in homage to these old practices. Still, like Christmas is experiencing now, the traditions are being revered less and less as people focus more on work and toil. Instead of taking a break, or maybe spending a little of their money to stimulate the economy, they hoard away in their homes complaining the days away.
A sad state of affairs indeed, maybe there is a lesson to be taken from our Filipino brethren. The longer we keep Christmas at the forefront of our thoughts maybe we will see our economies given new life. Maybe four months is not enough preparation, maybe it takes 10 months or more. Just enough time to get all of the decorations down and boxed before we bring them back out again. I don’t know yet how I would react to this change but for the better of the world I think we owe it to try.
So write that wish list and check it twice, thrice or more if needed…
