Christmas...
Erin McLaughlin (erinseyes@hotmail.com)
Sat, 12 Dec 1998 09:10:48 -0800 (PST)
"How's Christmas treating yall anyway? I always think of TCIR as a
`Christmas' novel (`Hold the sonuvabitch up! Hold it up there!' (:).
When you think about it, it's a perfect time to set it, when you think
of Christmas as the ultimate season having been reclaimed by the phonies
- turning one of the greatest events of the Christian calendar into a
junk mail free-for-all. You could go into all the wider
religiousimplications for this ... but hey, it's Christmas."
--Camille
"Camille I definitely agree. I just can not wait until Christmas is
over. Also Christmas is a time when many people feel lonely and
depressed, as Holden did throughout the novel." -Liz Friedman
I couldn't help but respond to this one. I mean, is Christmas
commercialized? YES. There's no doubt about it. But Christmas isn't
phony. It COULD be phony, but it just isn't. Let's see if I can
explain...
When I was in high school, a full believer in everything Holden had to
say, I thought he was so right about all the things he said about
phoniness and how terrible it was to have all these actors who couldn't
wait to have a cigarette dragging Jesus who was dragging his cross all
aroung the stage or whatever. That's why I stopped going to Church, in
fact. I was SURE that the guy in front of me was thinking about what
he'd have for dinner while he was saying the Our Father. I just KNEW it,
and it damn near drove me crazy. I couldn't even go anymore because I
thought it was such a load of crap.
But then I got older, and I realized how stupid it was for me not to go
to Church because I thought OTHER people were there for the wrong
reasons. I mean, why should I let what I think other people are thinking
stop me from believing in something?
I believe in Christmas. I believe in it for all the right reasons. And I
love it. I love those chessy Christmas songs, and I don't care who's
making a buck for singing them. I like red flannel pajamas and I like
candy canes and advent calendars, even. And I don't care if someone
makes these things to benefit financially from a sacred day. What I do
care about is that it is sacred to me. It means something to me. My
heart is full and my belly is full and the house is full and the
stockings are full and I'll be damned if I let the cynicism I fought so
hard to beat get me down again.
Phoniness isn't what everyone else in the world is doing or thinking.
It's just when you start not being true to youself. And you just can't
force your values on other people. (Although I'm trying really hard...)
I wish everyone could just watch "It's a Wonderful Life" and love it the
way I love it. I don't care who made it or why or how much the actors
got paid or what they thought of the movie itself. Because somebody
thought of that wonderful story. And whether they thought of it for the
"right" reasons or not, those thoughts came from someplace so human, and
someplace that thought that maybe, even if it is just in the movies,
life can be good no matter how rotten it seems. You know?
I don't know. I'm a sap on a soapbox. But what depresses me around
Christmas or any other day isn't all the crap that blinks, it's all the
people who don't...the ones who aren't phased by the witnessing of all
the tiny miracles that do happen and that are real. I believe in
Christmas, and I believe in myself, and I believe in the general
goodness of humanity. And I don't doubt there are grinches, but I also
don't doubt Dr. Suess.
Sorry, but I had to write this.
Merry Christmas,
Erin
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