The holidays, this year, have me all mixed up inside. I hear my neighbors putting too much emphasis on gifts, and not enough on what the holidays have always been for me. I see the kids in the stores with notebooks and pencils hurriedly scribbling last minute things to ask Santa for as their parents wander down the aisle pretending not to notice they’re not following. I hear people bickering on the bus over who gives the best gifts, and who’s the most grateful for what they receive. People are debating the meaning of Christmas, and what Christmas has become, and how people should or shouldn’t behave, and what we should or shouldn’t believe.

Conversations of respect, humility, love, and gratitude where there really is none to be found.

The last Christmas I remember with my family is my son’s first Christmas. It was awkward, and uncomfortable, and I took off as fast as I could, excusing my departure away with a second set of grandparents wanting to spend time with my boy. Really, I was just not interested in dealing with my mother’s judgmental stare, and my father’s nervous attempt at being a buffer.

Come to think of it, that may have been the last Christmas I spent with my family. When I pushed off and spread my wings, I flew far and fast. There have been very few moments where our paths have crossed again, and they usually take great effort. These days, I talk to my father, but I’m really pissed off at my mother, and I think I have a right to be. My sister… I just don’t know about her. And none of the rest of my family has made much effort. They think my absence is a testament to my black sheep status, and not their refusal to meet me with the same open, albeit catty, arms they welcome the rest of our family with.

But that’s neither here, nor there.

What’s got me mixed up is even the Christians don’t know what Christmas is about anymore. We live in a society of jaded, apathetic zombies who are content to continue following the same path their ancestors have always followed since the dawn of time, even though they know it isn’t the right one, and they really aren’t happy. And when  you call them on it, instead of trying to fix it, they’ll go on about how society’s always been this way, and it hasn’t imploded yet.

Some would say that’s the very definition of insanity.

I find myself mingling among those who consider themselves enlightened, and realizing that no one “class” of people has cornered the market on asshattery. Middle and upper class folks shopping organic foods in the theater are just as prone to standing in the middle of the 30-feet-wide aisle to talk, leaving no room for anyone to pass, and getting pissy when you politely ask them to let you through as the low income families shopping the overly bright aisles of Price Rite. Everyone’s entitled, these days, though to what is anyone’s guess. And “Christmas Spirit” has gone the way of the dodo.

While I realize Christmas critics around the world have been saying this for years, this is the first year I’ve really felt it beyond a bit of occasional frustration with an intermittent grinch here or there. And considering my background in retail, that’s saying something!

Christmas, for me, has never really been completely about family. It’s never really been about gift giving, or Santa Claus, or which religion I am. Even when I was Christian. I can’t remember how, but at a very young age, I’d heard the theory that Jesus Christ, whose name wasn’t Jesus Christ at all, was born in April, not December. And it didn’t matter to me because Christmas was never about that.

Christmas, for me, has always been more of an atmosphere than anything else. This air of giving, and loving, and caring for one’s neighbor. A time when even old Scroogy McScroogerson stops looking down his nose at everyone, and starts lending a helping hand.

Something I’ve learned over the past year is that one’s perspective is absolutely key to how they react to something. That people who expect things to go wrong often find themselves to be correct, while people who allow themselves to hope for the best, and have confidence in a positive outcome, often go farther than their more pessimistic friends.

This Christmas season, M and I allowed ourselves to get frustrated with the inconsiderate shoppers, out right rude employees, oblivious parents, and overly exuberant children while we were out shopping, and immediately our Christmas Spirit turned to jade. I stormed out of Kmart after paying for our belongings cursing the woman who had stepped on me, and the employee who talked the whole time she was ringing people out, and their piss poor job of planning, all the while oblivious to my own part in the lack of Christmas cheer.

I’ve come to realize that letting everyone else’s attitude affect how I feel about something really is a waste of my time. And when M told me the neighbors offered to help us in with the groceries, I realized it doesn’t matter if Christmas is over-commercialized, or if the man in the North Pole is a lie. Whether it began as a Pagan celebration of the turn of the season, or because of a baby’s birth. It was never about that. It’s still not about that.

It’s about brotherhood. Comraderie. Peace on Earth. It’s about helping your neighbor in with the groceries, or adopting a few families, or sending a stranger money so their kids have a Christmas. It’s about maintaining your sanity while others have lost hold of theirs, and hoping they’ll see and remember. It’s about giving to even those who will never give back. Good will toward men.

Merry Christmas, everyone. We hope that you remember.

photo from Eden’s very own CarrieAnn