THESE NEW OLD TRADITIONS

Last week, I sat down with my daughter to have a heart-to-heart about Christmas. She’s nine now, and it was time to break the news. “Did you know, kid, that Christmas is actually about Jesus?” From the blank look on her face, I could tell she didn’t. “The reason people celebrate Christmas is because it’s supposed to be a celebration of Jesus’ birthday.”

“Really?” she said, “It’s not about the presents?”

“Well, they call it Christmas, after Jesus Christ.”

A fire came into her eyes. “I think we should just call it Presentmas, then.”

Despite having two parents who are very interested in spirituality, Kid Khalila is adamantly opposed to anything having to do with God. I think her Christian homeschool friends telling her she’s going to go to hell if she doesn’t pray or go to church had a lot to do with it. Rather than scaring her into religious behavior, it’s caused her to be as anti-God as any kid can be. So, Presentmas, it is. I mean, let’s be frank. That is the reason for the holiday, yes? Commerce and greed and all that? And sometimes going to church to give the lil’ plastic babe Jesus a nod?

In our family, money is not abundant, so we don’t celebrate Presentmas like most folks do. I know that my time is far more valuable to my daughter than any present I could buy her, but of course, my time can’t be wrapped up and put under a tree. I rarely buy my daughter toys, but she already has too many. Buying more seems rather ridiculous. It’s our tradition in the weeks before Presentmas to go through her toys and part with the unwanted toys. When we’re done, we display them in our living room, get out the Presentmas list for kids, and go “shopping”. Last year, one of Santa’s elves (that would be me), wrapped presents picked out by the lil’ shopper, one by one. You’d think a kid would get tired of playing that for six hours at a time, but she didn’t. (It might have been the crackers I put out for samples). Our friends’ kids don’t seem to mind getting reused gifts, especially when they are quality toys or excellent books. I know I’d much prefer to get something already used than something coated in packaging. But that’s me.

In years past, we’ve made our own Presentmas cards, sometimes just drawing and coloring (the year of glitter being both a remarkable exception and a bad memory), and sometimes cutting up old cards that we received and collaging them into something new. They seem to be well received by friends and family. In my daughter’s younger years, we did a lot of crafts before Presentmas, such as making ornaments for our tree. They get kind of ridiculous, like cutting up an old Autonomedia calendar. Yes, that’s why Omagog, naked John and Yoko, Janis Joplin, and Emiliano Zapata are hanging on our tree, along with numerous paper chains, misspelled love messages on hearts, and random crafts from well intended events through the ages. We also did Presentmas countdowns–great for those years of learning numbers and learning to count. Now that Kid Khalila is older, and reading on her own, she has far less unpreoccupied time, and not so much oomph in the pre-Presentmas extravaganza.

I myself have lost a lot of interest in Presentmas in general. I enjoy giving, but for me, it’s all year, every day. Forcing myself to participate, even slightly, in a mass consumer holiday, just doesn’t motivate me. I do the necessary presents—handmade, of course—but that’s about all I can manage. For Presentmas this year, I’m giving my daughter a backgammon board (something on her Presentmas list, and something I didn’t make, unfortunately), and a ginormous Presentmas tree.

And speaking of Presentmas trees, I love these verses from Jeremiah, chapter 10:

“This is what the LORD says: ‘Do not learn the ways of the nations or be terrified by signs in the sky, though the nations are terrified by them. For the customs of the peoples are worthless; they cut a tree out of the forest, and a craftsman shapes it with his chisel. They adorn it with silver and gold; they fasten it with hammer and nails so it will not totter’.”

Sure, it was written a long time before Mary popped out baby Jesus, and way before the Christmas tree became a tradition. But it’s still fun to think that God hates Christmas trees.

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Myra Eddy is a midwestern anarchist artist housewife with a passion for nourishing plants, people, and community; she is already living in the next paradigm and hopes to see you there.