"Christmas is coming, the geese are getting fat
(also, ... the goose is getting fat)
Please do put a penny in the old man's hat
If you haven't got a penny, a ha'penny will do
If you haven't got a ha'penny, then God bless you!"
Christmas came and went in a stunning blur of blue skies, cloudy skies, dry roads, snowy mountains, shopping, eating, loving, laughing, caring, sharing and over all generally happy holiday and Christmas spirit.
"At this festive season of the year Mr. Scrooge, it is more than usually desirable that we make some slight provision for the poor, many are need of wants and hundreds more are in want of common necessities... so a few of us have en devoured to raise a fund to buy the poor some meat, and drink and means of warmth, we choose this time of all others when want is keenly felt and abundance rejoices!" ~ A Christmas Carol, Stave 1, Solicitors 1 and 2
This Christmas season, I discovered what the spirit of giving really is, and in turn came to understand the spirit of Christmas more closely. I don't have steady job, I act, I write music, I can't depend on a steady flow of money, it only comes if I want it bad enough and work hard enough and long enough for it. Not that anybody else's aren't, but I feel the money that I earn has an extra appeal to it because of the countless of hours of unpaid work that go into the final product, for which I am finally stipend. All of this money, however, worked its way directly out of my wallet and into the gift bags and presents for others. I didn't/don't mind not having money, I'm more than okay with a loss of monetary status, what's more in fact, I was given such a peace of mind and such solace in my heart for the gifts that I gave. It was slightly revelatory for me, I never would have guessed that NOT spending MY money on ME would have brought me more joy than presents for myself and treating myself to dining and toys (although I did once or twice, it's the Holidays.) But this is where the story gets interesting, and thinking ahead, it's not meant to be, in any manner, obtrusive or deliberately maniacal, but honest, and from my point of view and mindset. NOW, shall we go on with the tour?
I managed to get a present for every member of my family this year, this is the first year I've done that. My presents, me. I got them for my family, with my money, and even my time. You see, most other years it tends the way of:
Mom: "Here sweety I got you this card to give to someone special for Christmas, sign it and put it with the present that I also got for you to give to someone else."
Me: *muttered under my breath almost reluctantly* "Heartfelt love and wishes, I love you, Merry Christmas, Happy New Year, maybe a birthday if you've got one of those..." etc. etc. etc.
No. Not this year. And in a sense, I was proud not only of the gift giving act itself, but in the thought that each person deserved in those presents. Pregnant sisters got lotions, and body scrubs (you need them when you're hosting for two on a BYOB kind of night), an engineering whiz of a little brother got copious amounts of Duct Tape, the mother got a statue of an angel accompanying a small child, the outdoor beloving father received knives, a smart ass got an ugly sweater. And on top of all of these gifts were my gemstones, my pride and my joy, the lullabies that I wrote for my most perfect and beautiful nieces and nephew. I was proud of my accomplishments, I was full of joy to know that my wallet was empty, my days long and crammed and that my heart was full because of it. What I didn't realize is that Christmas anymore is left not the act of giving, but the things themselves. I grew up with relatively small Christmas' (I didn't know they were at the time, but in comparison to most, relatively small), and that didn't bother me. It gave Christmas this allure, this giving, loving, charitable time, draped in the beautiful falling snow and blanketed in the cold and snugly time of winter. Christmas managed, in a way, to lose this allure.
Upon purchase of the gifts, I was promptly notified that I would receive nothing in return, I was caught only for a second until I was completely okay with this idea, I loved the idea of giving for givings sake and accepting nothing in return, I had not done such a serviceable act in such a very long time, it was almost joyous. That is, until the tag line came, it wasn't because people didn't have time to get presents, it wasn't because they didn't have the money or ideas of what to get as gifts, it was because a paper said that I wasn't the person that they were supposed to give gifts to. In my ever jocular, holiday mood, I didn't take a second thought to it, I chuckled and said it didn't matter, and for the most part it didn't. Then I was told that I "should" have only gotten gifts for this person... because the paper said so. You see, the paper is, apparently, a mystical object that tells people how to feel, act, and operate during the holiday season, it tells you what recipes you should bake, what gifts you should get, the price range of those gifts, and even TO WHOM you should give them. I dared not question the paper, it sounded like quite a powerful and mystical object indeed. After all, it was managing to run Christmas better than the spirit of Chirst could.
This was the part that twerked me about Christmas, the idea of limited giving. I was twerked indeed.
Christmas came and it went, I even attempted to revive an old tradition or two, to no avail. We had breakfast, opened presents, everybody left and it was over. That was it, that was Christmas. That was CHRIST-mas, no morals, no scriptures, no CHRIST! as quickly, painlessly and with such a get it over attitude as was possible so that we could move onto other Chirstmas' and other families and other presents. At the end of Christmas with my family, my biological family, I physically had seven presents to go home with, all which fit conveniently in my pocket and right hand (the left was filled with my pillows and other such amenities used for the sleepover on Christmas Eve.) Now, that may sound greedy and wanting, but it's not the gifts, the physical gifts themselves, but the spirit that existed in the act of giving, and since there was no evidence left of the giving aspect, there was no giving. Not even in time, people showed up for breakfast, ate, opened and left before I could realize what happened on Christmas day. My faith and comfort in the spirit of Christmas was restored though when I went to (as viewed by my biological family) my "perfect" family's house. This is where I have been living for the past six months of my life, and to add to this story that fact that one of my families does not like the other, does not help add to the Christmas spirit. When I got back home, where I'm living, my "perfect" family was still head strong opening presents, after a long breakfast and whatever other traditions that they carried on each year. I was just in time to walk in and open my own. O.O
In the heat of attempting to impress and make amends with my own biological family, I had completely negated my inherited family, and like I had done for my own siblings, so each of my OTHER siblings got a gift for me, not to mention my "perfect" mother and father reigned their Christmas presents down from on high their celestial pedestal. But let me catch myself here, it's not the presents that brought the feeling I'm soon to discribe, it was never about the presents, it was about the thought, the action and the care excecuted from each to make Christmas worthwhile. Sitting in the sun room, surrounded by family ever eager and awaiting for you to open your presents, the presents that they had gotten me, was more of an ethereal feeling than I would care to describe right now. The presents were the catalyst in this idea that it's the action of selfless giving that makes Christmas worthwhile, and they all seemed to be happier, more care free, and somehow have a lot more time for each other than we did with our paper and instructions on how Christmas "should" be. What's more, when I couldn't return a single gift to any of them, I got hugged with the comforting words "That's not what Christmas is about, you worked hard enough for your family, don't worry about us. Everybody deserves a break once in a while." I had to excuse myself to cry in the solace of my bedroom that Christmas morning, and just when I thought it was over, everyone came back for Christmas dinner (which wasn't cheap by any means either!)
"And the Grinch, with his Grinch-feet ice cold in the snow,
stood puzzling and puzzling, how could it be so?
It came without ribbons. It came without tags.
It came without packages, boxes or bags.
And he puzzled and puzzled 'till his puzzler was sore.
Then the Grinch thought of something he hadn't before.
What if Christmas, he thought, doesn't come from a store.
What if Christmas, perhaps, means a little bit more."
The presents came, yes. They were nice, yes. But Chirstmas, the spirit of Christ, the holiday of giving, came in exactly that, the spirit of giving and the worship of Christ and his ultimate gift. I dare! you to top what he did... you just can't. And to think, if only I had listened to words of a childrens book, this whole problem would have been avoided.
There is very little I have to complain about (*scans back over the entire blog post), and I am unusually lucky and unorthodoxically happy. I have more than one family, and though some see it as a curse and pain in the ass, I've come to discover it as the best Christmas present of all. I am blessed, I am healthy, I am happy, I am loved and I love unconditionally in return, what more can I ask for. God has blessed me with more than I derserve and sometimes even more than I can handle, life doesn't get much better than that. There is solace in selflessness, how much more plain could I make that, in giving to others, you find yourself. In losing idoletry, you find comfort and joy, true present to share with the world. May God or whatever higher power you believe in bless you with more than you are able to recieve, may blessings be poured out upon you that you have no room to recieve them, and are left with no other option but to give. My love, my support and my affection always. Till we meet again my friends.
