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Merry Whatfuckingever.

Todd and I haven’t celebrated Christmas in thirteen years. Todd’s an agnostic, I’m an atheist, and we’ve been honest about Santa Claus from the beginning with Paul. So once you take out Jesus and Santa Claus, it’s all pretty pointless.

But this past May, Paul asked if we could celebrate Christmas. We compromised on celebrating Winter Solstice. I’d like to say that I rediscovered all the joy of childhood Christmases, and I’m looking forward to celebrating it again next year, but what I said in May still holds:

…if it were up to me, we wouldn’t bother with it at all. Holidays feel fake to me. I just can’t get behind choosing a specific day in which to give gifts, or color eggs. Hell, we’d celebrate Halloween whenever we felt like it, if it didn’t require the participation of the rest of the city.

Don’t get me wrong - I truly do celebrate Winter Solstice; not as an indication of the coming of spring, but as a confirmation that I can happily look forward to three more months of chill winds and snow. I just wasn’t able to get into the holidayishness. I felt like I was always on the verge of rolling my eyes and spent much of my time curbing my tongue, trying my best to make it special for Paul’s sake. It’s not Christmas he wanted, but to share in a celebration with other people.

As Kite, Paul and I were sitting at the table cutting out snowflakes a particularly dirge-like new age piano piece began in the music mix we’d been playing. I dolefully began telling the story of the Little Match Girl, while Kite giggled. I felt a momentary hope that I’d begun a tradition - a sarcastic reading of the melodramatic story as the dirgy piano piece played, but when I began reading it aloud later I ended up stopping in the middle and handing it over to Kite, crabby because Paul wasn’t paying attention.

Before Paul woke up the next morning, I created a trail of questions and clues and salted them around the house - in his Lego box, under the dining room table, in the fridge, in the oven. At the end of the trail? His Solstice gifts, a bookstore gift certificate and a computer game). Also an issue I struggled with - if we give him a gift, is it truly Solstice, or just a bastard Christmas?

Anyway. I’m glad it’s over, and glad I have another year before I have to do it all again.

© 2004 QN Podcast (formerly Quirky Nomads).