I'm a lapsed Catholic; it's true. And right now I identify more as pagan than anything else; hell, I even have a regular spiritual practice. But one thing that has been so gratifying to me during this transition from agnostico-vague-spiritualist to practicing pagan is the reclaiming of Christmas.
At last, I know what it is that has been so appealing to me about the holiday for all these years. I've watched as mainstream (read: Christian) America has tried, in vain, to "put the Christ back in Christmas," only to see it grow more inflated and commercial every year. It doesn't work, because the holiday has been stolen: it was holly and ivy long before it was a baby in a manger, and the more it tries to be forced into that mold, the more the perverted pagan traditions pop out, devoid of all spiritual meaning, and devolve into an orgy of spending and inflatable plastic Santas. I've watched some of my Jewish friends recoil in disgust at the way the holiday takes over the hearts, minds, and front yards of their neighborhoods, and listened to people complain about everything from false holiday cheer to endless Christmas music to yet another painful few days with their families, pretending to be happy while tensions seethe.
And yet, through all of this, I have always loved the smell of Christmas (cinnamon, pine, baking meats and pies, snow, and woodsmoke), the specials on TV, the caroling (only in the past couple of years have I actually begun participating in a door-to-door tradition), the tree with its white lights and beautiful ornaments (I decorated mine tonight), egg nog, gifts, the Rockefeller Center tree lighting ceremony, the sound of bells in shop windows, and the Mormon God-damned Taber-fucking-nacle Choir.
And I've realized over the last few years that all - not one, not two, but all - of the things I love about Christmas aren't about Christmas at all.
They're about Yule.
Yes, the winter solstice. It was fun tonight singing a gorgeous arrangement of "The Holly and the Ivy" - a pagan carol if ever there was one - and seeing the way it had been warped into a Jesus carol. The words of the first verse and the chorus are as follows:
The holly and the ivy,
When they are both full grown
Of all the trees that are in the wood
The holly bears the crown
O the rising of the sun
And the running of the deer
The playing of the merry organ
Sweet singing of the choir
Come on, now. "The rising of the sun and the running of the deer"? This is a solstice song! But in the next verse it goes on to compare the attributes of the holly to Mary's bearing of Jesus. Whatever.
In any case, there are many, many, many beautiful carols that celebrate the birth of Christ. And many, many more that celebrate Christmas as a general time of love, peace, and good will toward men. And a few that are left over from them pre-Christian times. Deck the Hall with boughs of holly, and all that jazz.
The point, though, is that the silent night, holy night that I love has very little, if anything, to do with the birth of the king of the Jews. And further: that's okay with me. I don't need the Christ in Christmas. Because before it was Christmas, it was very much celebrated in the ways that I find most rewarding about the season: with holly, pine boughs, lights held together against the darkness of winter, feasting and drinking with friends, song, presents, and fellowship.
Happy holidays, everyone, whatever you celebrate. I'll be off enjoying my Yule vigil in front of a 15-hour roaring fire on Thursday night, celebrating Christmas with my biofamily on the 25th, and feasting with my dearest friends here in Boston on New Year's Eve. May you all be so multiply blessed.
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