What Do We Mean When We Talk About the “Christmas Spirit”?
What do we mean when we talk about the “Christmas Spirit”? We might be talking about Christmas as some sort of sentient being that suddenly passed away, leaving behind its intermittently glowing, Christmas-tree-scented body and drifting into snowy white plains to find peace and solace. Or we might be talking about a Christmas story: a tale of grumpy, scornful Christmas-haters who, through a series of transformative experiences, suddenly discover their true “Christmas Spirit” and learn to love the holiday. Perhaps we’re talking about swarms of timid-yet-friendly elves populating our gardens, clad in merry red-green colors, leaping for joy despite the cold, and magically avoiding slipping off the icy roads. In this article, I will talk about my personal experience with Christmas and how it has shaped my understanding of the Christmas Spirit.
Graphics / Margrét Aðalheiður Önnu Þorgeirsdóttir
A Peruvian Christmas
Growing up in warm and sunny Peru, the Christmas I experienced every year was vastly different from the Christmas depicted in television commercials or portrayed in pictures, on carpets and dishes, and just about anywhere else you can think of. For one, our Christmases were spent at the beach, wearing shorts and sandals, without flurries of snow to cover our streets and rooftops in white, cushiony blankets. The idea of Christmas was not connected to winter holidays, but rather to the much-awaited arrival of summer. For us children, Christmas was the time of year when the best present was the freedom afforded to us by the end of the school year. Perhaps for that reason, we did not regard Christmas with reverence and ceremony; for us, it was just the beginning of what we hoped would be a long, warm summer filled with adventures and surprises. Periodically, someone would confront us about our disregard for Christmas, asking the question, “Where’s your Christmas Spirit?” At the time, I thought it was a cute question, more in line with Christmas protocol than genuine interrogation. However, when I grew old enough to move abroad and began spending the Christmas holidays away from the beach, the question would return to my mind.
Christmas abroad
Like everyone, I intuitively understood what we meant when we talked about “Christmas Spirit.” And yet, adolescence being so particularly irritating and erratic in my case, I fell into the typical self-questioning arrogance that tested all of my closest friends’ tolerance and patience. When Christmastime loomed, I would question the idea of it, challenging its relevance by decrying it as a systemic lie built on well-constructed capitalist ventures. Of course, we do not need an annoying teenager to remind us of this. We all know what the image of Santa Claus is meant to represent. During my first snowy Christmases, this annoyed me terribly. But as the years elapsed, my feelings of exasperation dissolved through a series of monthly headaches. I began to ponder a different question. Everyone seemed to know what Christmas truly represented, and even then, it didn’t bother them…so, what did they mean when they talked about “Christmas Spirit”? Back then, I knew in my heart the answer to this question, but my adolescence persisted in turning my world grayer just for the sake of it. Alas, I still lacked the smallest doses of maturity to embrace the answers hiding in my heart.
What is Christmas about?
In the twilight of my adolescence, I gave up on complicated ponderings that seemed to lead nowhere and offered more head-scratching results than comforting revelations. I loosened up, and slowly I embraced the things of the world not for what I wanted them to be, but for what they were. This brings me back to the “Christmas Spirit.” If, like me, you have ever asked yourself what the point of it all is - why the big man clothed in red and black winter attire sliding down chimneys, flying along the dark starry Christmas night on a sled pulled by a legion of merry-looking reindeers; why all the lights and razzle-dazzle; why the flamboyant dinners and the wine and the presents and bubbly-sweet drinks and trees and songs - why do we invest so much effort in a single day, when most people never even bother to find out why it exists in the first place? Have you ever asked yourself this? My answer is not enlightening; neither will it brighten or darken your Christmas. What I can tell you is that, like you, at some point, I did ask myself what the trick behind the idea of the “Christmas Spirit” was. My realization: Why bother?
The Christmas Spirit
Christmas is not necessarily a tradition that must be understood. It is a feeling, a smell in the air, a sight in your neighbor’s garden. It is the lights and ornaments and foods and songs and a whole other bunch of merry things that are meant to be experienced, to be felt. There’s no point trying to explain the “Christmas Spirit.” It is a way of life, an embracing of family, friends, colors, lights, and songs; it is faith and belief in religious, fantastical, and private tales that offer an abundance of hope. The “Christmas Spirit,” then, is the empathy and love that we as humans unleash upon the world on a specific date, and for at least one night a year reminds us that our lives can be full of holly jollies, jingle bells, and a whole lot more merriment than we dare to dream of.
That is what we mean when we talk about the the “Christmas Spirit.”