Last week I mentioned decorating for the holidays. What if you are the type of person who doesn’t celebrate holidays? Some people don’t do anything for even one of the most common December events. I’m not talking about Grinches, either. You don’t have to have a bad attitude to declare holidays off your to-do list. However, the Grinches, Mr. Potters (like the curmudgeon from It’s a Wonderful Life) and Mrs. Deagles (the misanthrope from Gremlins) out there don’t help matters.
This is a time of year which, simply because it is so heavily touted as a family-oriented month, causes increases in depression and suicide. People become angry more easily due to the stress associated with societal expectations, and good intentions to diet and exercise are put off until January.
A possible reason for the lack of celebration is also related to the increased feeling of loneliness among people who don’t have the Norman Rockwell-sized family with whom to celebrate. Some people have no family, and their friends have their own families, so the choices are limited to accepting a charitable invite, visiting a restaurant that is open, or spending the day alone.
The societal rejects in our world are also excused from the requirements of normal existence, relegated to soup kitchens or even sitting alone in the same tent or cardboard box they inhabited the day before, trying to stave off the chill with a cup of donated coffee. It’s accepted with casual ignorance because, once we have situated our place in the world’s status hierarchy, we expect everybody else to remain entrenched in theirs.
If a person doesn’t celebrate, it saves a lot of money on decorations, food, presents, cards and travel. It also saves others the burden of having to familiarize themselves with different people who may not have the same upbringing and, therefore, another angle of viewing the world around them. Think of it as inviting one person from political party A to a dinner at which everybody is in party B. Your guest is not like you in every respect. However, they may still enjoy Aunt Lidia’s lasagna.
We have taken Christmas and turned it into the do-all, be-all event of the year to the near exclusion of others’ holidays. Since it was a date shifted for convenience to December 25, it seems we have chosen to designate it as such, and some cling steadfastly to it. For many others, it is a date on the calendar and nothing more. That doesn’t make their way of handling the day any more right or wrong. They are simply doing what is right for them.
For those who just like December to be December, it’s okay, and we salute you.
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