Christmas Desperation
I'm having a really hard time getting into the Christmas spirit this year. Partly because I've been sick since Thanksgiving -- today is the first time I've felt almost OK in nearly a month -- but partly because there's just something missing this year. It's taken me a while to figure out what it is, but I think I've got it: there's a real absence of Christmas cheer in the air.
On one hand, this should hardly be surprising. Even the lame-duck President has finally admitted that the economy is in the toilet (I heard someone on NPR yesterday note the irony that the first MBA in the White House presided over the worst economic situation since the Great Depression).
But on the other hand, when I listen to Jim's grandmother talk about the Christmases of her childhood, I don't think we've got many good excuses for feeling sorry for ourselves.
Grandma was the daughter of Ukrainian immigrants -- her father worked in the coal mines in eastern Pennsylvania. He died when she was very young, leaving her mother the sole guardian of 11 children.
This is the sort of poverty that really proves what kind of character you've got. It could turn you into something awful, or it could teach you the value of relying on each other and spreading the resources as thin as possible so everyone gets a little.
Grandma tells stories about how her older brothers would scour the neighborhood for discarded Christmas trees and cast-off broken toys after "regular Christmas" (Ukrainian Christmas is in January). "We didn't have much, but we had each other. And if someone else from the neighborhood showed up, my mother would always find something to feed them," she says.
So this year as I'm watching TV and seeing all the commercials that are all but screaming, "look at these deep discounts!! Buy as much stuff as you can or else the whole economy is going to implode!!", something doesn't sit well with me. This Christmas desperation is what's deflating the cheer for me, I guess. Like Charlie Brown, I've never been too cool with the idea with an overly commercial Christmas. But it seems to me we've gotten to the point where we're basing our whole economy on this one "shopping event", to use the current lingo. That seems...precarious.
I think we should try out the spirit of Grandma's poor immigrant Christmas for a while. What do you think?
On one hand, this should hardly be surprising. Even the lame-duck President has finally admitted that the economy is in the toilet (I heard someone on NPR yesterday note the irony that the first MBA in the White House presided over the worst economic situation since the Great Depression).
But on the other hand, when I listen to Jim's grandmother talk about the Christmases of her childhood, I don't think we've got many good excuses for feeling sorry for ourselves.
Grandma was the daughter of Ukrainian immigrants -- her father worked in the coal mines in eastern Pennsylvania. He died when she was very young, leaving her mother the sole guardian of 11 children.
This is the sort of poverty that really proves what kind of character you've got. It could turn you into something awful, or it could teach you the value of relying on each other and spreading the resources as thin as possible so everyone gets a little.
Grandma tells stories about how her older brothers would scour the neighborhood for discarded Christmas trees and cast-off broken toys after "regular Christmas" (Ukrainian Christmas is in January). "We didn't have much, but we had each other. And if someone else from the neighborhood showed up, my mother would always find something to feed them," she says.
So this year as I'm watching TV and seeing all the commercials that are all but screaming, "look at these deep discounts!! Buy as much stuff as you can or else the whole economy is going to implode!!", something doesn't sit well with me. This Christmas desperation is what's deflating the cheer for me, I guess. Like Charlie Brown, I've never been too cool with the idea with an overly commercial Christmas. But it seems to me we've gotten to the point where we're basing our whole economy on this one "shopping event", to use the current lingo. That seems...precarious.
I think we should try out the spirit of Grandma's poor immigrant Christmas for a while. What do you think?
posted by Christine Borne at 11:08 AM
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