You Can Christmas If You Wanna
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I recently read Julietta Singh’s The Breaks, a 168-page letter to her young daughter about her own childhood and the fuckery of humanity and making a life in a time when the world is most certainly careening towards death. It is devastating and beautifully-written and I apologize to the friend who lent me her copy for all of the tear stains on the pages. In addition to being proud of myself for completing an entire book (being 168 pages helps, but I often crap out at around page 50), I was very effected by Singh’s model of parenting; deliberate, honest, and somehow both protective and releasing. Since reading it, I have vowed to do more to bring the reality of things closer to my children, or my children closer to reality, however hard. This is a task that presents itself with more consent to me and my family, as I am not, as Singh is, a mixed race mother to a mixed race child, but the urgency is there nonetheless.
Did you think that I forgot about Christmas? I wouldn't dare! I am a Jew who has always celebrated Christmas, because my dad grew up, maybe, Protestant? I love Christmas. I love big-ass Christmas trees with tinsel and shit. I love Dark Chocolate Covered Peppermint Joe Joe’s. I have a mental map of every single house that is decorated with lights within a one-mile radius of our home. This time of year, my days are real fuckin’ merry and bright.
Standing in line last week for meet our first Santa of the season (we will go next week to see Fairyland’s Black Santa, a decades-old Oakland tradition, unless it is canceled by rain, which to Californians might as well be the apocalypse), we met a five-year-old boy who was so jazzed about the whole thing that he had bought himself a red cap, put all of his leftover Halloween candy in a shiny gift bag to present to Santa, and taped a blank piece of paper to his chin to act as his "beard." I see you, Paperbeard. When it comes to Christmas, Paperbeard and I COME HARD.
As a child, we were all allowed to pick out a new ornament for the Christmas tree each year, and when we took our annual trip to Pier 1 Imports, and my other siblings lovingly selected some beautiful object, or, in the case of my younger brother, refused to participate in such an act of consumerism, I would find the largest package of multicolored balls available, argue that it constituted only one distinct thing, and purchase it amidst my siblings reminders that they would surely all break by Christmas, which they did.
I promise I had a point in discussing The Breaks, and it is this: that as much as I am convinced that my child is living in a toxic, capitalistic death-cult, and our daily complicity, added to the complicity of most others, is what keeps the death cult in business, I just can’t limit Christmas. I fear that Julietta Singh probably celebrates Christmas, if she celebrates it at all, by taking her child out in to the woods to observe the winter flora and fauna, and then perhaps bringing by the toy store to select one cherished item, which I can’t imagine is an entire box of unnecessarily crappy shiny balls. I used to feel embarrassed or guilty about my love of Christmas, about spending so much time buying and accumulating shit. But if the world is ending, and it is, I think I want one more ride on the holiday lights train, one more overpriced trip to the ice skating rink. I have a gnawing sensation that I should be walking into the woods, but instead I have signed up for all the activities. I have happily purchased presents. I am letting my Christmas freak flag fly.
Many other people I know, especially mothers who bear the brunt often indescribable holiday responsibilities, hate Christmas. They hate the pressure of finding gifts, hate all the waste and consumerism and watching the people they love fall prey to predatory advertising. They hate managing expectations. And there's a lot of anxiety, in my internet circles at the moment, about how to have a Christmas that sends our kids the messages we want to send them about what matters, who should be included, and the unbelievable privilege our children enjoy but most definitely shouldn’t.
I'm all for reflecting and figuring out what matters to us and trying our best to do those things as much as the other members of your family will tolerate. But, in good ways and bad, kids don't learn everything they learn in childhood from one day in December. This can be an opportunity, a loosening of the Christmas chains, the idea that you can mostly do what you want. If you love Christmas, love it hard. If you hate it, select the activities, if any you will participate in and skip the rest. If you want to tell people not to get your kids presents, or at least ones with batteries, you have my blessing. I don't think anyone will care too much. But also, if you want to give your kids all presents, and watch them essentially pass out from overconsumption for one day, that is, IMHO, fine.
The other side of that is this, if you really are feeling tripped up by complicated feelings about stuff and hoarding and lessons you think your child is learning about entitlement on Christmas, probably those questions shouldn't just come once a year. There's no one right way to deal with those questions (I do recommend reading The Breaks or Courtney Martin’s Learning in Public as a start), but exploring them is the work of parenting.
If some moral hand is tugging at you this season, loosen its grip long enough to enjoy a hot cocoa with marshmallows, but don't let it disappear January 1st. Remember, kids get the big picture. And while it is a nice thing and certainly a thing we should all do to say, give away old toys before we get new ones, that one act will not be the backdrop for your child of their moral upbringing. But things like divesting from private institutions that hoard resources on behalf of our children, working for organizations that care about other people, those things just might. Maybe your Christmas guilt is actually worth listening to, but you don't have to read all the blogs and deny your kids stockings and make everyone give to charity in the next week to do that. You can and should do that every day.
Maybe you are thinking, “what the fuck Sarah???! Are you telling me to care less about my parenting or more?” I know this statement will make my husband, who is very good at writing advertising taglines, cringe, but I think what I'm saying is, maybe we all just need to care different. Yup, I’m trademarking that (we learned all about that in business school).
In that same vein, we can care different about ourselves by listening to our reactions to something as bananas as Christmas. For me, I think my Christmas excitement is fine, and it also reveals how little I feed the sensation seeker in me the rest of the year. Why shouldn't I be going on weird activities in August? Buying presents for those I love whenever I have the urge? Drinking hot cocoa every goddamned day? (Well, that one I kind of do). For you, maybe that overwhelming anxiety about being around our partner’s family is there because we haven't given ourselves enough solitude in our daily lives. Maybe our fear of giving the wrong gift is telling us that this is not our love language, and if we leaned into that more we wouldn't feel so bad about all the books are friends never end-up reading and we’d double on the beautiful cards we love sending at random intervals or the drinks we are great at buying a sad buddy when they need it.
Read The Breaks. Christmas how you want to. Be nice to yourself this week, whatever that means to you. Follow the advice of my pal, when I was ragging on my kids yesterday to cherish each present he gave them before opening up the next one, and remember that “there is no right way to open Christmas presents.” And for any other Christmas-heads out there, see you on the holiday lights train.
Also, this:
In an attempt to be a less-shitty person all dang year round, I just launched a project, in collaboration with a very smart friend, to help more parents in my community find and choose great public schools. It’s called Get Schooled Oakland and I’d be thrilled if you checked it out and followed us on the socials medias. And I made this logo on Canva and while it’s not THE BEST I would strongly recommend getting yourself a Canva subscription if you like pretty things but don’t know how to make them on your own!
Christmas forever.
Sarah, I absolutely adore your Newsletter. I even forgive you for going to business school, but only if you gift ALL of Courtney Martin’s books to your wide circle of friends for Christmas or other Holidays! This must include “Do It Anyway” because it’s dedicated to me. I’m celebrating this Christmas because my older granddaughter has recently come out as a lesbian and is organizing a Queer Club at her college. They will read bell hooks magnificent books, my very favorite feminist writer. Keep up your fantastic writing! Peace, Dennis Dalton