Christmas for all

I grew up hating the holiday season.

And as you can probably tell by my byline, it had something to do with celebrating the less popular holiday come December time.

There was a sting of resentment as I watched my friends write letters to Santa Claus and decorate Christmas trees.

Even now as an adult, admiring the string of Christmas lights across Kirkwood Avenue and the wreaths hung on light posts on campus, some of that jealously is rekindled.  

For one reason or another, I felt the holiday season was divided into three — and the decorations to consider depended on your celebration of choice.

Surprise surprise when every year Christmas came out the big winner in terms of festivities.

I always wondered why Jews even bothered to compete in December, considering that Hanukkah isn’t even that important of a holiday to begin with.

But lately I’ve realized that there’s nothing to stop me from celebrating the holiday season with winter foliage and pretty blinking lights.

So I’ve accepted the secular as my own. Candy canes, mistletoe and reindeer don’t have much to do with the birth of Jesus Christ anyway, so why feel isolated from it?

Then I remember there’s no biblical context to Jesus being born on Dec. 25 to begin with, and I really start to appreciate all the decorations the season has to offer.

This shift in perspective has greatly changed the way I notice the holidays.

Now, instead of identifying with the menorah’s and Stars of David and ignoring everything else, I have adopted about three quarters of what I see around me as pure holiday cheer.

However, the token treatment of Hanukkah and Kwanzaa has not gone unnoticed.

So I’ve begun to wonder, why even bother stringing blue and silver amongst the red and green? Is there a point to putting a kinara in the corner behind the Christmas trees topped with a yellow glowing star?

No, probably not. In a secular sense the point of the holiday season is to distract from the weather turning to crap.

Turn on the pretty lights and start selling some special holiday coffee to keep the masses warm.

It’s a season of gift giving so there’s an excuse to spend time with family and friends when the days turn short.

It’s the most wonderful time of the year only because if it’s not the holidays, then it’s winter time, and no one wants to deal with that until January.

So malls and shopping centers of America, turn up the holiday cheer and drop the political correctness of the holidays.

Embrace the decorations that characterize the season without worrying about symbolic gestures.

Even the Christmas music can be fun for everyone.


E-mail: danfleis@indiana.edu