Christmas

Christmas is a celebration of American nostalgia and exceptionalism; it has little or nothing to do with religion; there is nothing of ‘Christ’ in the Christmas we celebrate. This time of year is one of incredible bad faith (in several senses); in a frenzy of shopping, we justify the American way of life — ‘joy’ through spending, debt, material acquisition. It is a pathetic farce. Chestnut trees died decades ago, winters are no longer cold, small towns are dead, no one goes to church anymore except out of habit and perhaps, if they’re lucky, out of guilt. Christmas celebration is actually The Christmas Experience: a national, Disneyfied re-enactment of what people used to do this time of year; a half-dead impulse rooted in the forgotten, universal need for diurnal celebration. We ought scrap the whole thing — scrap it it until there are winters again, until there is real community again, until there is real belief again… until the spirit of buying transforms back into the spirit of giving — again…