The holidays are largely over for the winter holiday-a-palooza, and it always leaves me in a pondering mood. I was raised semi-sort-of-observant Christian (Episcopal) and over the years I’ve been Wiccan, Agnostic, Atheist, and I’ve finally simply settled on non-theistic Wheatonist. (“Don’t Be a Dick” – sidebar? I totally beat Wil Wheaton to the punch on that, I was quoting it as Chapter one, Verse 2 of the Book of Common Sense in the 90’s)

Anyway, what I’m getting at is that I don’t have a specific attachment to the religious aspect of any given Holiday in the winter months. Christmas, Yule, Hanukah, Kwanza, Ramadan. . . Festivus. I’m game with them all.

But I’m not unaware of the tricky bits there.

Let’s face it: Religion is messy. Non-Religion is messy. Probably because there’s people in it all. People are MESSY. Imperfect. Contradicted. Flawed.

Human.

I love Tim Minchin’s song “White Wine in the Sun” as a great and humorous synopsis of the contrast of religious beliefs, societal realities, personal tradition and commercial exploitation that is Christmas. Give it a watch now if you like, I’ll wait. (https://youtu.be/fCNvZqpa-7Q)

{A note vis Tim’s song: Family isn’t necessarily who you were born to. Family is what you make for yourself, and it’s still FAMILY.}

Christmas is what I’m going to focus on here, because I live in a predominantly Christian populated country, and most of my family ancestry comes from similar. (Unless you go back a while, at which point we thought Tir, Thor, Odin and Freya were pretty freakin awesome)

Christmas is so many things. It’s a time of thankfulness, a time of worship, a time of giving and sharing. A time for renewing old ties, forgiving old wrongs. A time of fellowship, of travelling to family and sharing time. It’s also a time of avarice and consumerism, a time of resentment, a time when the misery of rejection is at the peak and when old wounds bleed anew.

We can throw ourselves completely into one side of this or the other. Become mindlessly absorbed in the OMG PERFECT LITTLE DRUMMER BOY WASN’T THE 1950s PERFECT IT’S AN AMERICAN CHRISTMAS AND EVERYTHING IS GREAT!!

… OOOooorrr in the god-is-a-lie-and-santa-isn’t-anything-but-a-ploy-to-sell-toys-die-die-die-you-whores-to-capitalism.

I think like many things in life, it’s tempting to adopt that black/white dichotomy of absolutes. To love a holiday season with full rejection of the realities underpinning it, or to eschew the entire thing and build your self-identity on it.

Sounds rather like many political arguments come to think of it, but I’m not going to blog about that this month. (la la la I can’t hear you Obama is never leaving, yes I’m a hippy leftist fuzz head la la la)

Instead, we can look at the messy, imperfect mixture of the Holidays. We smile more. We remember the fellowship we felt at church perhaps and go for a day or two. We give to the less fortunate, we help people, we wish strangers well. We see people we forget to make time for. We spend too much, we rack up credit card debt, we stress out over dinner with family we disagree with. We embrace the wide, wild range of emotions, realities and difficulties.

We make our own traditions, and they give us comfort in a world that we know is never in control.

It’s astounding to me to sit, watching the snow that is the seasonal backdrop of my American New England Christmas time, and to think about the billions. -BILLIONS- Of Holiday rituals that exist around the world. The family “things” that mean Hanukah, Christmas, Yule and all. For my family, we start celebrating on the Solstice and open a present a night from then through Christmas… a bit of a borrowing from both the Hanukah and the 12-days tradition. Christmas Eve is usually a feast dinner, something suitably English to honor our combined family’s primary ancestry (this year was a grill smoked beef rib roast with potatoes, pan seared brussels sprouts, fresh baked bread, and plum pudding for dessert). Christmas Morning, anyone may open their stocking presents (which for us are food, small toys, candy, random little things that struck our fancy) before Breakfast. After Breakfast, which is bacon, popovers, and Mimosas, the rest of the gifts are exchanged. Then we play board and video games and watch movies.

That tradition is not precisely what I grew up with, or what my wife grew up with. We created a new set of “these are the things we do” together. And EVERY FAMILY DOES THIS.

Every. Generation.  Every Year.

Regardless of what your family’s Holidays are, this happens.  Buddhist, Christian, Muslim, Hindu, Pagan, N/A… you have days that mean things, that create tradition.  You blend the good and the bad,  you celebrate and survive, you accept change, and perpetuate the things that make you feel safe.

So, it got me thinking about what a perfect metaphor for life the whole thing really is. The Holidays are a distillation of our entire existence into one focal point of the year, with maximum awareness. We are imperfect creatures, and each of us, in each successive year invent, reinvent, and re-assess our own personal traditions. We embrace the most noble in our souls, and indulge in the most selfish. We are Human, with all the astonishing beauty, and disturbing horror that brings.

And we can love our life. Love our fellows. Love our neighbors, and STILL be aware of the imperfections. We can be honest about those, and dislike that aspect, and seek to try to better things, without falling prey to idealistic canonization or cynical demonization.  We can look upon imperfection with honesty, and still find ourselves valued, enriched, and loved.

I’m going to try to remember that as the year goes forward.  I suspect there will be a lot of need for honesty, acceptance, and also hope in the future.