The Holiday Spirit

I wrote an essay on this page a few years ago about how enchanting I find this time of year. I reflected on how the warm incandescent light can pool out from a frosty shop window onto a snowy street. I thought about living in a place in which the cold air was underlaid with the scent of freshly crafted confections. The sparkle of the winter snow during the day was at its peak, as though nature was also celebrating the coming of a season marked by happiness, family, and charity. In this essay, I won't rehash everything I've already said, as much as I'd like to, but I want to analyze here the ability for humans to attach such deep and pure feeling to a simple time of the year.

After all, what could be so special about the time from December 1st to December 31st? Prior to the elation and dread of New Year's, there exists a unique crystal of time, captured in its uniqueness as a snowflake. Why does this time in particular elicit such a strong emotional response from so many?

The easy answer goes to the roots of Christianity. At some point, the birth of Christ himself was tied to December 25th. A seemingly arbitrary date, but in actuality a well-thought-out response to try and circumvent the power of pagan holidays which occurred during the same time period, like Saturnalia. I cannot say this for certain, but I surmise that a part of Christianity's overwhelming restructuring of human thought itself was tied into how it presented this holiday. Not only was it a time for worshipping Christ, but it became a time for being with one's family, for giving out of charity and opening one's heart to love. The coming of the winter solstice and the many holidays of all religions which tend to fall during that period coalesce an entire world culture into an air of comfort during this time.

Maybe this could be analyzed as an easy way to reduce complexity, but for once, I think there's more to the story. Religious aspects aside, the holiday season began to capture stories. Similar to how Halloween gives us a unique insight into our own fears, the holiday season brings us stories of growing beyond oneself, of becoming more kind to people. Be it Ebenezer Scrooge or the Grinch, we can see interlaid within the tapestry of holiday stories the continual theme of growth into positivity.

The analog aspect of this season hearkens to the crinkles of crow's feet around the eyes of an old soul. The best holiday songs seem to have a granular quality to them, as though they were still being transmitted from AM radio towers. Classic films do not have the crisp and smooth movement of today's cartoons, but rather the warm, innocent drawings of old-school animations. Everything comes together to ground us, to bring us down to our core and remind us that humanity can indeed be salvaged even in the darkest spirits.

And to harp on the aesthetics for another moment, the juxtaposition of the bright, happy lights with the pitch black descension of an early night brings another chord of joy to me. The joke circulates around New England every season: how the sun will be bright and full at 3:59 pm, but once the hour hits… all turns to black and night chokes out any of the remaining heat. While that's somewhat true, it seems a rebellious undertone in the holiday season exists to bring light to what is otherwise a confrontation with the void. Houses are lit up with multicolored droplets which cast their little auras into the reflective snow. Windows are filled with little candles that bring a special warmth to the house. To me, it seems as though the world comes together around the holidays not just for the love of one another, but to form a united front against what is otherwise a hollow darkness.

Yet one question remains unanswered for me: if humanity can come together in such joyous spirit during this season, why could we not do it for the entire year? Is there a reason we return once more to mundane cruelty and indifference after roughly one month of kindness?

The answer comes twofold. First, the perception of the holiday season which I detail during this post does not represent the holistic human condition. Even now, as we in the upper-middle-class west think about what gifts we will give to our loved ones and which holiday songs are our favorite, wars are being fought. Famines, crime, abuse, and all manner of humanitarian crises are underway around the world. My own impression of the December time period finds itself under rosy tinted glass because I have never had to undergo any "real" form of hardship during this part of the year. Of course, some of the wisest philosophers in history have said that hardship cannot be quantified on an objective scale or compared amongst people, but I find that some humility and objective reasoning is vital to put things into perspective.

The second aspect of our oddly temporary warmth in an otherwise lukewarm globe of humanity can be found in the deep roots we have for commercialism in the west. I cannot speak for Christmas in small European villages, wherein I've seen on television the small gatherings for the sole purpose of joining together in song around one hearth. It seems idyllic, but for the vast majority of people who are either like me, agnostic but swept up in the holiday spirit, or bordering on western-religious, this season brings with it the excitement of purchase.

I've spoken about how deeply instantiated we are in commercialism, particularly myself, and I can't deny that a large part of the thrill I feel for the holidays comes from the idea of having a tree with glittering presents underneath it. I love the idea of buying things for people, for myself, and having an excuse for it which assuages my conscience. The media, always bent on selling us things throughout the year, goes into overdrive in December, inciting the innocence of the holiday spirit to try to force our hands towards out wallets.

In making this post, I wanted to remind anyone reading this, including myself, that the holidays are not, in fact, about buying things, and that, while it's okay to have the rose-tinted blinders on for a month, we should remember that the world around us still finds itself in chaos. If possible, we should try to remove those blinders for a time and try to direct our charitable geist to the greater world. Now, I don't want to get on any sort of horse for this point, high or low, so I'll make it clear that no judgement should be passed upon those who cannot, or simply do not wish to, make the suffering of the world apparent to themselves at this time. A little blissful ignorance can't be faulted, particularly if it's shrouded in the gentleness of holiday souls.