Christmas: a time for cookies, carols, cookies, and conflicting ideals

I’m taking a little bloggy vacation this week and letting you all be entertained by some of my favourite bloggers. This is a guest post by Arwyn from Raising My Boychick, whose blog I profiled here a while back.


I am conflicted when it comes to Christmas. I sort of love it, with a passion fueled by a thousand incandescent tree lights and a hundred cookies with artificial flavors and colors. I also sort of hate it, in part because of incandescent tree lights and cookies with artificial flavors and colors.

I am an anti-consumer-ist who adores presents. I'm an atheist-partnered Wiccan who loves the Christmas story. I'm a stocking-stuffer-stuffer who believes in Santa. I'm an environmentalist who thinks only cut, real trees are proper Christmas trees. I'm a whole-foodist who wants a true blue to paint her refined-sugar and white-flour cookies with.

Cookies are the perfect metaphor for all I love about Christmas; artificial flavors and colors is the perfect metaphor for all I loathe about Christmas. American Christmas is a plate of home-cooked cookies from store-bought dough topped with frosting filled with Red Dye #3: what I love and what I loathe are inextricably linked.

I want to share all the joys of Christmas with the Boychick, and teach him to reject the dominant culture (to reject domineering as an acceptable cultural trait); I want to give him presents, and teach him not to be greedy; I want him to see through lies, and share with him the game of Santa. I want him to learn the blessing of giving, and the blessing of not-buying stuff.

It's a bit of a dilemma.

In my ideal world (it's Christmas, I can dream big, right?), my culture would bake up wholesome cookies, a giant sample box of real-food sugar cookies and rumballs and gingerbread people, with vegan and gluten free and kosher options, and a side of carrots and kale for those who don't want cookies at all. But what I'm presented with are genuine Pillsbury cutouts, with frosting that will stain lips and raise blood sugars, without pesky things like flavor or nutrition.

Extending this metaphor perhaps too far, this is how we're trying to nourish our child this time of year, when "no cookies" wouldn't be a practical option, even if we wanted it:

• Having and taking part in cultural events can be good. Humans are inherently social creatures; doing things as a society helps bind us together. We long for traditions, and strive to share those traditions with others. For better or for worse, American Christmas is a part of his (and my) culture and heritage, and I want to make the best of it. So the tree, ornaments, eggnog, cookies (of course), snowflake decorations, lights within reason (and when we remember), cheesy snowman-head candle holders passed down fourth hand: yes to all of that. Yes to all of that for us, with no expectations that anyone else will desire or appreciate it, with the understanding that even shared cultural events are not universal, and other persons and peoples have other traditions.

• The birth of a wanted child is always to be celebrated; the healthy out-of-hospital natural normal birth of a baby to a loving family even more so. The Christmas story can be about hope, about the promise-fulfilled birth of the sun, about finding joy in the darkest of times. It can teach us how to behave when a baby is born (bring gifts! ...though more practical than incense, please), and that a baby born in a barn to an unwed mother is no less worthy of love than any other. So yes to the Christmas story, to candles lit at midnight, to Silent Night and What Child is This? and sometimes services at his grandparents' church. And yes the rest of the year to celebrating other births, to bringing offerings (and practical assistance), to gathering community from far and wide. Yes to seeing the joy already present in the world over, the year 'round.

• Giving freely, sharing what one has to share, reveling in the joy on another's face when they are given what was needed and desired: these are wholly good things. I want the Boychick to learn to give from abundance, to learn that there is abundance whether or not one is rich in material goods. I want him to learn empathy: to give what others desire, not what we would wish to get, or desire to give. And yes, I want him to learn to ask for what he wants -- not just what he craves for a moment, or has an impulse for, but what would bring him joy. Why shouldn't he ask for that? Why shouldn't he name all the things he might like to have, and then learn that the world doesn't end because he doesn't get them all, if any? To presents, to reclaimed wrapping and bows used for ten years running, to the giant packages under the tree with six nesting boxes inside holding a gift certificate for a day together, to making and reclaiming and crafting and buying from local artisans: yes. Yes even more to sharing food, to buying for families we don't know, to offering a smile when we don't have anything else; and yes to bringing it year-round, to small unexpected gifts in mid-August, to giving our time and our selves without expectation of reciprocation, to basing gratitude on what we have, not on what we have that others don't.

• I believe in Santa. He fills my stocking every year, comes down the chimney even when I don't have one; I never feed him cookies or send him cards, but he comes to me nevertheless. I don't remember ever not knowing that my parents were his intermediaries, that they did the legwork for him in picking out the toys and barrettes and bookmarks and gums and games and toothbrushes (yes, toothbrushes) which stuffed my stocking, but I'll still shoot a glare at anyone who says he isn't really real. There is value in this too, in cultural myths, in pretend, in nudges and winks and let's-play-along. It was and is, simply, fun. So yes to stockings, too, to the story of Santa, to answers of "what do you think?" to inquiries of veracity, in play-for-the-sake-of-play. I've no desire to delude nor disillusion my child, so I'll pass on the cookies-eaten and the letters and the pictures with "THIS smelly-mall-Santa-with-the-suspicious-looking-beard is REALLY the REAL one" and the active effort to deceive. But play? A story told because stories make us human? Yes to that, too.

I don't know whether those plans are idealistic or capitulate to dominant culture; I don't know if they're reasonable or impossible. I do know that it's worth my time to at least try to mix and shape and cook up nourishing traditions when the mass-produced, store-bought culture says it's time for cookies. It's worth it to have the Boychick see me try, see me say yes to joy and generosity and traditions and tasty treats in a way that tries to keep others' needs and desires and traditions in mind as well, even if I trip, even if I fall flat on my face in the flour, Santa hat askew, sugar strewn everywhere. What the store-bought culture misses out on is that the making can be half the fun, and even cookies imperfectly shaped and dully decorated are well worth savoring when they're made with whole ingredients like butter and laughter, dried fruit and fresh song.

What is your recipe for the holiday season? Do you embrace it all, ignore it all, resent it all, or try to craft something similar-but-different like we do? What tastes and textures and scents and songs do you want your children to remember, or do you fast during this season, figuratively or literally? What memories and values are you trying to serve up for your family?

Arwyn (@Raisingboychick) lives, blogs, and sometimes bakes in the United States' Pacific Northwest with The Man and the Boychick. She does not always overextend cooking metaphors.

Comments

[beth aka confusedhomemaker]

The consumerism is why I am happy for Advent & to follow a more traditional practice (we are Catholic) in our home, because while I love the coming together as a family with friends & sharing time together the consumerism side should not be the focus. It is a battle to keep that aspect away, because it is everywhere. I am not anti giving gifts or anything, but making that the focus versus sharing time together is not my thing. I want my children to remember the time we spent as a family, our faith, building our traditions together and giving versus getting.

On a side note, it is an ancient tradition around the gifts the Magi brought that St. Joseph used those gifts to pay for the family's passage to Egypt & to help them pay for things while he tried to establish work there. In the end in that tradition it is a very practical gift.

[Naomi]

I'm making cookies now...and hoping to sell this house and move to another for our x-mas gift. I feel as conflicted. My son is going to a Jewish pre-school this year so it is nice to get some alternative to all the santa stuff that he gets anyway....but even that has it's own pressure. We can't affort 5-10$ for each of his 4 teachers! Not that we don't like them but we have some difficulty paying for the school sometimes!
Anyway...ugg! My posts on the subject- http://sususeriffic.blogspot.com/2009/12/presents-gift-giving-and-goolash.html http://sususeriffic.blogspot.com/2009/11/changing-of-guards-in-christmas.html

[Summer]

I love this. I'm an ex-anit-Santa. I was certain that I didn't want to lie to my kids about it, especially since I had grown up without the Santa story. I've softened a bit on it now. We don't go all out, but I'm enjoying the pretend play and anxious excitement of Santa. And if my kids need him to be real, then he is.

[Amber]

This year, with an almost-5-year-old, I am finding Christmas to be very easy. I'm just sort of following her lead, and she's loving it. If I can do that, just be in the moment with her, the rest of it is less stressful. It also makes me care less about the family politics and mess and noise, because my magical-thinking child has enough magic to carry all of us. THIS is why people say Christmas is better with children, I think.

[Christmas: a time for cookies,]

[...] ideals Today I have a new piece hosted over at Annie’s engaging blog PhD in Parenting: Christmas: a time for cookies, carols, cookies, and conflicting ideals, on how The (atheist) Man and (Wiccan) I attempt to deal with the pervasiveness of both secular and [...]

[Arwyn]

In my family of origin (which was liberal Protestant), most years we did advent candles and advent calendars (the picture kind, not the chocolate kind), and I loved it. It had nothing to do with gifts (except, sort of, counting down to the day of presents), and everything to do with marking the season, with the enjoyment of that anticipation, with gathering around to discover the picture and share the stories and light the candles. That sort of ritual is one thing the Boychick is missing out on in his non-Christian, mostly-lazy family.

[Arwyn]

I'm curious -- why were you anti-Santa, and what changed your mind?

[Arwyn]

"If I can do that, just be in the moment with her, the rest of it is less stressful."
Isn't that always the truth?

At not-yet-3, and not having much exposure to popular culture (no TV, no preschool/daycare), the Boychick doesn't really "get" Christmas or Santa or anything else yet. (Interestingly enough, he's REALLY into the tree, although we haven't gotten one this year yet; we're planning on doing it with the Grandparents on Monday.) So to him, it's not really any different than any other time of the year, just colder and darker. I wonder when that will change, when he'll get the "magic" and anticipation of it, and whether he will at all if we don't end up sending him to preschool? He does remember some things from last year, but all he talks about is the tree and the snow (and he doesn't believe us that the snow is highly unlikely to happen again here in the Pacific Northwest!).

[Emerson]

Believed Santa was real till 5. Still love Christmas. Nice getting gifts. Nicer giving them, now I am older.

Still believe in Santa. I look enough like the jolly old elf that kids mistake me for him. Even have the red suit. Shopping as a secret santa in the mall a few weeks ago a cute little girl said "look moma, theres santa". Wasnt even in the suit, though I was wearing the hat.

St Nicholas was a historical human. The rest is the magic of belief.

As for the tree, I always have had one. One year I bought a live one and planted it afterwards. Last time I drove by that old house it was still growing there.

[beth aka confusedhomemaker]

I don't know if you saw the latest issue of Mothering Magazine but there are some nice ideas on how to create rituals & traditions this time of year that are not specifically religious but bring in some of that same feeling. If you are looking for that, it might be something to consider for the future.

Also, we are focusing more on making things together & the enjoyment of creating. This year we are adding in making a variety of ornaments & hopefully we'll be able to do this every year from now on.

[maria]

well, this inspired me to go dust off a post from the vault: http://smallredhouse.blogspot.com/2007/12/what-christmas-can-mean.html" rel="nofollow">what christmas can mean at the currently-defunct small red house. written by a spiritual post-theist kinda-earthy unitarian universalist with christian heritage (who is partnered with a secular humanist cultural jew). that sums up my personal philosophy/theology of christmas.

in the two years since i wrote that, i've reflected more on the evolution of our family's holiday traditions...i've had to come to terms with the fact that i'm the only one in our family who celebrates christmas here in any way that approaches meaningful (my stepdaughter is always at her mom's for christmas, and here for two of the eight nights of chanukah, so chanukah tends to be the winter holiday we focus on with her). our family doesn't embrace christmas the way mine did when i was growing up.

as a jew who grew up on the edge of the bible belt, my partner doesn't share my cultural-christian privilege; he is not as eager to adopt a syncretic approach to religion, and i don't blame him. so i stopped dragging him to christmas eve services after a couple of years. it was important for me to share that part of my life with him at least once, but it was not so important that i felt justified asking him to relive the experience year after year, when it really does make him uncomfortable. where he grew up (a place he otherwise loves), my partner was told, explicitly and implicitly, (and often in school), that jews are just sort of christians who haven't realized it. it took me a while to wrap my head around that and realize how privileged and disrespectful that mentality is; how even though it may well be an attempt to focus on what we have in common, it still centers christianity as the norm, the ideal, and any other religious traditions as the other or as some inferior (but "tolerable!") versions of christianity. and unfortunately, christmas is the time of year when this attitude is pretty unapologetically in-your-face in western culture.

anyway, whee privilege. i know this totally wasn't what you were asking for, but it's what i've had to learn and accept about christmas in our family so far. right now the fact that SD's mom is christian and her dad is jewish makes dividing the holidays pretty simple, and because i was raised a liberal la-la syncretic UU, it's been pretty easy for me to embrace my partner's jewish traditions to whatever extent works for us (although i've been careful to try to let him take the lead, and not to go appropriating it all because I'm So Open-Minded). personally, singing in a choir has helped me to get my christmas tradition ya-yas out. we spend christmas day exchanging presents with my family, but it's never much of a production, especially since we have already exchanged some when SD is here for chanukah. i don't know what we would do if we had other kids; i'd probably want to do more to celebrate christmas with them, but i'm not sure what or how much.

[Stephanie]

We enjoy it but try to keep things pretty simple. The two older kids (4 & 7) are old enough to be really, really into it all. I like to encourage them to make presents for family members, my oldest is planning a show for the Christmas party the extended family has, and probably after Christmas this year we'll have them go through their old toys for ones to give to charity. Some years we manage that before Christmas.

We do make cookies and leave them out for Santa. The kids love that.

[Melodie]

If I had the talent for writing that you do I could have written this myself! I'm pagan with tightly held and cherished Christian-based traditions. I do Santa, and like Summer I am an ex-anti Santa mom. I realized I didn't want to leave my kids out of all the magic the other kids experience. I get by the lying -thing by telling them he's magic. Because magic lasts forever, right? I'm also a whole foodie who bakes up a storm. I just made and devoured 2 dozen chocolate covered coconut balls, made with evaporated milk and icing sugar. Oh so good! My mom baked dozens of different kinds of squares and cookies when I was a kid so it's in my bones I think. After Christmas I'll try to get us all back on track. I'm still trying to figure out how to create some of our own traditions, waiting for something to stick. This year we did advent paper chains and an advent giving jar. This will be the first year that our oldest really gets Christmas, although she still doesn't get the whole asking for presents thing. All she wants for Xmas is an umbrella because hers broke. I love it!

[slee]

As I've gotten older, I've learned Santa *is* real. He's all the kind people who put forth an effort to help others less fortunate.
We celebrate Christmas even though I'm a pagan girl. Spouse is christian and dd leans that way. We are doing a yule this year if I am well enough. I have 1 gift for each child that night. A book, and I think it will be positively wonderful for both of them, eve though snapdragon is only 7months old.

[abbie]

I love this post. You put into words much of what I feel, and why I as an atheist choose to celebrate Christmas with my family. I have always explained that I celebrate with my family, and that being together with our traditions is what's special to me.

[MomTFH]

Sorry I'm late to the party. I am just catching up on my blog feeder. What a great post! Reading almost felt like you'd been in my head the past week! I am a heathen atheist non consumerist anti red dyeist, but I have been talking to my kids about Jesus and Santa because the underlying themes are about togetherness, giving and happiness, and because it's our families culture, and I don't want to rain on that parade every year.

Thanks for the excellent guest post.

[Ready for Christmas? | PhD in]

[...] Christmas: A time for cookies, carols, cookies and conflicting ideals (Arwyn from Raising my Boychic...: Last year Arwyn wrote a great Christmas-themed blog post for me while we were away on vacation. Read her thoughts on her love-hate relationship with the season. [...]

[Happy Holidays! — PhD in Paren]

[...] A couple of years ago here on my blog, Arwyn from Raising my Boychick wrote about Christmas, cookies, carols, cookies, and conflicting ideals. [...]