When is Christmas?

Sunday.
A day of rest so why am I here writing? Dunno. Just had to.
I had a busy week and this Monday already has it's "To do" list waiting for me in the morning.
I just want to relax but feel I need to write first. I did check my bait and see the rat sprung the trap. I'll tend to the rodent later. Predictable little vermin.

It is a week until Christmas yet it feels so, so...so un-Christmaslike this year. Why? Have we killed Christmas and its spirit? It's in a week but does not feel like it. Kind of like the how the "Red Mile" felt last year. Same street, same pubs and city, yet no spirit. Nothing to celebrate as there was no hockey. No cup.
I am not alone. Many of my friends are saying the same thing, "It really doesn't feel like Christmas this year...does it?" I answer "No. It doesn't"

Last year I had my first hot, tropical style Christmas as I lay on the beaches of Australia. Snow? Santa? Never heard of them. I have never had a Christmas in a warm climate before. Or New Year's, or my birthday (which is the same as Ukranian New Years by the way)...or even Easter for that matter. None of those had been in a warm climate. Last year I nailed all four. I really just wanted to remove myself from the whole white Christmas thing. The holiday, which was my favorite as a kid, just seemed so...tainted? No, it felt more like tarnished, eroded, diluted.

Maybe it was the whole commercialism of it and how corporate greed seems to overshadow the true meaning. All those sickening ads on TV tempting your wallet. Warping young minds on the perspective of needs and wants.
Maybe it was years of doing shows for so many company Christmas parties that made me a bit bored of it all. Or perhaps it was the new wave of sickening political correctness that had invaded our society and forced people to say such meaningless palitudes as "Happy Holidays" or "Seasons Greetings".
Greetings by a season? Christmas is not a season! It is a holiday observance.
All I knew was I did not want to sit in a frozen country and do the whole HO HO HO thing again. So I set up a tour down under. No snow, no Canada, no Christmas the way I had grown up with it. Maybe if I left it all, the real feeling would come back the following year.
Nope.

My trip to Australia was to be a month and a half but got extended by 3 more months and included time at the Melbourne Comedy Festival. No snow, lots of heat, great shows, really awesome people, beautiful beaches. I loved it there. A lot of the shit that bothered me was not there. Sure there were things I missed about Canada but there would be time to miss it later. I was in Australia!! How many comics in Canada can say they did that? Not many. I felt very privledged to be where I was.

So why is it this year, after not having a traditional Christmas, does it seem so little like the best holiday we have? I did the same number of shows...maybe more.The TV ads are still here although I don't watch them.
There's snow again although a good old chinook may wipe it all away. The family will all be together and that will be cool. I did my shopping in a record 2.5 days!! Yet....it feels like any other time of year. Why?

I thought I would be excited to have a white (or at least coolish) Christmas. Naw, it just seems to be a drag now. Maybe with some of the seasonal and climate changes our holiday clock is a bit screwy? We have had winterish summer weather, spring like fall weather and so on. Maybe we need to move Christmas to another time? I know it is the birthday of Christ but...in the interest of keeping the spirit alive do you think he would mind if we changed it? Say...to March? Then maybe we do one year where there are no gifts from stores, just personally made things and gestures of kindness. The trick is, we don't tell the corporate and retail sector until its too late. Then maybe, just maybe, Christmas will return.
Until then, happy days of December.
I think the celebration will be in 2006 as many things are coming then. Maybe that's it. Christmas is on a long fuse. Ho Ho Ho

Comments via email:
...............read your blog....Christmas has gotten way too commercialized and lacks the joy it once had....it has turned into an orgy of greed....this year at my house it has been taken down a notch or two... be creative and not focus on the presents.... a much better and calmer season has been the result...
B.I. New Jersey

I totally agree with your blog about christmas.
For me its not Christmas until the first big snow fall. Big, wet, fluffy flakes that blanket everything. That gets me in the spirit of things
also...the "how dare you mention god or jesus at Christmas" attitudes ticks me off.
S.K. Alberta


Could our discontent/dismay @ this time of the year be a reminder that we ...like everything... are continually experiencing changes. That sometimes it takes the stark reality of time passing to remind us how much we need to appreciate what we have in front of us now. Wishing that some things would never change = iz only wishfull thinking. We need to be open to allow new ways/people to fill these holidays. In our perverted zeal to keep things the same we sometimes forget that some have experienced loss ....of family/loved ones, and so are left out in the cold. This is it ...one life and only opportunities. So choose to surround yourself w/ good company year round which i've found can help us learn to gracefully allow the passing of time.
olikunvrhav
J from Vernon BC

The Christmas piece echoed my own thoughts. Christmas is washed out- I don't think you could have put it better. This is the first year in 15 years I'm not in retail and I thought it would be better but, the commercialism is still there lurking in the shadows. Makes me realize I've made a good decision to escape to a spa and refocus on the world
TB Kingston Ont. aka the eastern queen