Pear Trees and Partridges

This time of year, virtually every where you go there are Christmas songs playing. The weather outside is frightful, yes. We all know this one. We know about the tiny tots, eyes all aglow, and the anticipation for the arrival of a magical, bearded man that keeps them awake on Christmas eve. when know about reindeer games and one-horse open sleighs. None of this is new. And, every December, we get to hear all about these things again - and again - from version to kitschy version. If I sound a little bitter, it's because I recently came to the realization that I am tired of Christmas music.

I tend to push against tradition. I'm not a boat-rocker or a rebel of any kind; I just always feel a little bit of revulsion when I see people doing something simply because it's popular. This can lead me to avoid things that are genuinely worth my time to experience - the more people tell me that I need to see a certain film or read or certain book or check out a certain band, the less likely I am to do any of those things. While I was out shopping yesterday, listening to yet another version of "Walking in a Winter Wonderland," I started to feel that little bit of sickness. It's always been there - the instinct to question Christmas traditions - but I feel permeated by it now to a greater degree than ever before. Clearly, the pageant attitude of Christmas, the mindless ceremony, and the public pressure to take part in all of this holiday madness have simply worn on me. I honestly used to enjoy Christmas songs! But my recent epiphany left me wondering whether or not we sing them and listen to them at this time of year because they genuinely speak to us or because we have been doing so as long as we can remember. I'm inclined to believe that, more often than not, the latter is true.

So why should this be a bad thing? Surely it's harmless. We hum the songs, we spend the money, we have family dinners. We do all the Christmas things just like everyone else. Where's the harm? Well, that's not really my point. My point is that it's just meaningless, and that repeating the same rituals over and over eventually devalues the purpose of the rituals. Like a child who believes that "Elleminnow" is one of the letters of the alphabet, we have, in large part, learned Christmas through imitation. I wonder if there are deeper things at work...if there might be a natural human tendency to fall into endless repetition of virtually changeless routines. Whatever the case, it's getting to me. Christmas is yet another thing that makes me feel like I don't fit in. It doesn't seem like a season of cheer to me; it seems like a season of blind obligation. The old platitudes are empty: peace on Earth and goodwill towards men. Peace is not something that can be obtained through thoughtless conformity. If there is one thing I know about people, it's that we have no natural tendency to shut off our brains and slip through life enthralled to popular edict. No, that tendency is programmed, learned, acquired, and whenever I see people stuck in that loop I get a little sad. We cannot have peace if we do not think about why we do the things that we do and whether or not we actually want to do them, and there will never be goodwill toward men if we hold one another to standards of conformity which have no basis in necessity, being rooted solely in tradition.