Christmas Culture and Traditions (2019)
There are normal expectations associated with the Christmas Yuletide time worldwide, most of which have developed over decades and centuries. For the collective parts of us this is true, and for individuals within the greater whole we fit our traditions, customs, expectations, and hopes within the greater context. What do we value, what do we do? Are we different in December than the rest of the year? My short answer: We should be, things are set up differently.
At the cusp of a new decade where my generation, Generation X of 1965-1980 has officially hit the time of age and life where we are old, with our children coming into their own time between tradition and discovery, I reflect on the present and the past, and perhaps see into the future.
Much of North America is cold in December, where the light of the day is shortest and there are snows and cold showers and crisp mornings of frost to deal with. Europe is similar in its fashion, with the southern climes being darker and colder, even though a warmer Mediterranean area, like parts of California in the Western United States, usually does not deal with snow, at least not on the lower lands of the coast. Mountain elevations tend to be different, of course. Asia, the northern parts like China, Korea, and Japan, or deeper into the continent in Russia and the center, also face their snowier times in this month. Not all these lands are Christian dominated, but the snow and ice and darkness invite the feelings of Santa Claus and warm hearths and fires, families gathering and outdoor holiday lights beckoning, stores and now delivery giants churning out their wares to the eager masses and their desired purchases. Most presents are given in this month, yes?
The tropics face their own times of climate effects in the holiday season of December. My mother and step-father consider Cambodia the best time to visit for its temperatures in this last calendar month, December.
In the southern hemisphere, the Chileans and Brazilians, Argentines and South Africans, and other Africans, and Australians and some South Pacific islanders are in the full of the bright lights and warmer winds of summer. Some of them look up the northern side of the planet and observe our snowier caprices.
Christians in the south celebrate the yuletide expressions of hope and worship and fellowship as well.
Movies, music, art, food, sports, shopping, eating, traveling, reflect this time of year.
Please do not misinterpret: I am not stating that all humans follow a Christmas tradition. Rather, I am suggesting that the "norm" of the modern world follows this paradigm in December. Celebration of Christ and His birth or not, we are geared to and modulated to respond and behave in the ways of the traditions of the season. Gift giving, celebrations, special acknowledgements to love and kindness and charity, family togetherness. Curious to know what the Chinese do to either distance themselves from this Western way of life or perhaps amalgamate it. Or the Hindus of India, plus the greater Muslim world.
It certainly can be a hard time of year for many, Christian or no, well off or no, healthy or not. Very often the holiday cheer expectations or norms do not fit the lovely picture of warmth and kindness.
Too often it is the opposite. We have times of metaphorical and figurative darkness in these cold months, for sure. Times can be hard.
Nevertheless, the modern day notion of December and Christmas time is fashioned into us, and we are supposed to be happy, cheerful, grateful, secular or no. Some Jewish Americans have the December 25 tradition of eating Chinese food. They also have their lesser celebration of Channukah. There are sub-cultures that celebrate the "Winter Break" (as the U.S. military tries to couch it for people of all persuasions) in different fashions. Many of us like to escape the harsh cold climates and flee to the warm areas, be they islands of other warmer winter locales.
Jehovah's Witnesses worldwide do not celebrate special occasions, that is their tradition. I am positive that they take advantage of the school and work breaks and come together as families or congregations of believers.
Belief and practice of faith or not, people change many behaviors in December, leading up to the holidays of Christmas, New Year's, and a week later the Day of Kings, for some, or others call it differently. This is the end and the beginning. A time to re-start and re-do. New Year, new hope, new plans.
Re-think?
Probably.
Re-thinking has been going on a lot in the last 10, 20 years.
Allow me to broach on the subject of gender. ( I actually wanted to go into a break down of television specials, movies, books, music, as far as Christmas arts, but first this...)
Some of these thoughts and social movements are not new, per se, to the last two decades, but the larger acceptance of the commonality of them are. Legal institutions and social norms now tolerate or encourage the gay/queer and other agendas of sexual relationships, beyond the traditional male/female romantic paradigm.
A newer age of the Internet and social media have changed perceptions of many things, among them gender preference and gender identity.
I recall from my personal life the presence of gay and same-sex or other influences, my own memories and impression tracing back to the 1970s.
Like all things, our own experience or initial takes can form how we view and deal with these issues. Obviously our own background and individual make up can determine these views and opinions beyond the actual exposures to differing phenomena.
When I was ages 6-8 in the 1970s, my best friend two doors down lived with his older sister and his single mother. I came to find out that his father, who possibly lived in far away New York (700 miles away), was gay and had a relationship with another man or men.
This did not strike me as ideal. Mrs. Noyes seemed like a good and kind person; I thought that the lack of the father to his children and that direct contact, despite the difference in his preference toward a romantic partner, the person he sired two children with, was unfortunate.
Later in the 1980s I became aware of a high school teacher, looked up to greatly by some people I knew, as attracted to both genders, or he was bi-sexual. Not long after that, an older man on my paper route who displayed homo-erotic art, suffered a similar fate like the first gentleman mentioned, and apparently died of AIDS. This was the 1980s. Many homosexual men contracted AIDS. It is possible a friend of mine that I grew up with, his father may have died of AIDS in the early 1990s. I do not know, but there may have been indicators about him being promiscuous. Not my place to be judgmental of such people, in many ways, but each of us deduce how we wish to live and what we accept as preferable for ourselves. Each of us are given this privilege, to choose what we prefer.
The point of being "non-judgmental" is that each of us is free to judge as we please, right? I judged that this preference or lifestyle was not conducive to me. It did not make sense. Some of my close friends from my elementary and middle school decried their gay minister from their church; they did not proscribe to the same morals and tenets of my particular upbringing, which some characterize as anti-gay; for them this meant no longer believing in holy books or authorities, I think, and probably not believing in chastity until matrimony... I fell away from a lot of their friendships and I honestly do not know on what principles they hold now. Almost 40 years later.
I am grateful to live long enough to have this perspective. I am blessed.
And: back to perspective and same gender attraction and identity.
In 2019 there is newer acceptances of sexual preferences and identities.
In 1998 I had a class at Indiana University where a professor/teacher (probably my age) declared that there were 37 different genders. I openly disagreed.
This many years later there is likely more acceptance of the openness of sexuality, of who we are, how we are, what we are. Not just what we prefer, but who we really identify as.
More biological and social sciences may indicate this to be fine, acceptable. Ambiguity, others call it dysphoria...
Today conventional wisdom might declare the freedom from former identities and more sure knowledge systems or standards like gender, faith, politics, decency, fairness, justice, equity, equality.
Democracy has come under the microscope, the new frontiers of governments in Russia, China, Turkey, or smaller cases of Venezuela or Iraq or Afghanistan. What about Libya, Yemen, or Somalia?
All these places are searching for their collective souls.
Meanwhile the capitalist system marches on socially and economically, which is generally how are world works, with considerations to saving the environment and our foundations for the future, to include energy policies and conservation practices.
Will cooler heads prevail?
Are we as a planet and people moving forward?
Are icons of the past holding us back, like the notions of monogamy and marriage and gender roles as they have operated for most of biological existence?
It is time to reflect, to see forward a bit more, to contemplate who we are, what we understand, what is acceptable in a modern going more post-modern world. Are we post-modern yet? Some thought that we were back in the 1960s...
I am not convinced that we are post-modern yet, not as many have fashioned it in the last 50 years.
Modernity is now, still, in a day when gender identity is open to many, where one cannot be sure if one is male or female, and if those meanings have meanings.
There is no proof that there are unseen things and beings such as goods or divine powers, or that there has been any interaction with those of us on this sphere, this plain or realm.
The fundamental truths of yesteryear are not more questioned than ever, like a God leading His or Her of Their people, and if there really is any such thing as a Chosen people, or Covenant, or if commandments are so arbitrary that they mean little...
We have decided that murder is bad, right? That is more or less an absolute, but we know there is a time to kill each other as well. Wars become justified when plying the right politics...
We struggle for justice, fairness, transparency, an "equal playing field."
Began this and did not publish, last worked on: Draft
