As a young adult I was involved in a group that had some non-mainstream and often contradictory beliefs about Christmas and how to observe it, if at all. There's a verse in the Bible which tells Christians to not be observers of times or seasons, so this group told us that we shouldn't be celebrating Christmas (or any other holiday), but they did anyway, changing the name, but putting up Christmas trees and exchanging gifts, while pretending that they weren't celebrating Christmas. The leader of the group had also published a book wherein he claimed to have calculated the birth of Jesus down to an around 90 minute window on September 11, 3BC. So, not only were we supposedly not supposed to observe Christmas, but Jesus wasn't even born in December according to them. It made for a lot of confusion, but mainly they just gave lip service to the "not observing" and observed anyway. It was around this time that I moved to Nebraska, away from my family and ceased to be involved in family Christmas gatherings.
After getting married and starting a family I wasn't so involved with my former group, and celebrated Christmas in a more or less traditional manner, although on a small scale. My income was pretty small, so we couldn't afford anything lavish, but we always had a tree and gifts, assisted by my parents who always sent a box with small presents and a check to purchase other stuff. But since we weren't involved in any church and my only family were my in-laws who were very unsociable, I really missed the big family gatherings of my childhood. After being married around 10 years we got back involved in my former religious group. We sometimes did group things - one year we got a few hotel rooms on Christmas Eve and hosted a pool party for our local home Bible fellowship. My kids were also, after hearing Adam Sandler's Chanukah song, became curious about that holiday. Having grown up in New York around many Jewish families, I knew what Chanukah was and for a few years we celebrated, in addition to Christmas, the Festival of Lights. We also had a Christmas ornament tradition for many years. One year, after one of my children complained that our tree had no star, I cut out a photo of Bob Dylan and put it atop the tree. Every year we had a different "star".
Things changed quite a bit in 2001 when my wife and I separated and then divorced. She had convinced most of my children that I was a bad guy and pressured them to not spend time with me. I spent Christmas 2001 friendless and alone, living in a dingy apartment that I called "The Hovel". On Christmas Eve, after closing the store where I worked, I went back to my apartment, ate dinner and got drunk on eggnog spiked with Jack Daniels. At midnight I went to the nearby Catholic Church where the highlight of the evening was me enthusiastically hugging people who I didn't know at "the sign of peace". On Christmas Day, as I took an afternoon walk, I discovered that movie theaters were open on Christmas Day and I stopped in for a viewing of The Fellowship of the Ring which had just come out. For the next several years that was my Christmas ritual: close the store on Christmas Eve, go to a movie and eat dinner at a buffet on Christmas Day. After a few years I met my second wife, Susie, and we continued the tradition, spending time with Susie's daughter Sami on Christmas Eve.
This tradition lasted for a few years until, one by one, my children saw through their mother's propaganda and started spending time with me again. We started inviting all the kids over on Christmas Eve and continued our movie and buffet tradition on Christmas Day. Most years we put up a tree and outdoor lights and sent out cards. I was so excited to have my kids as part of my life again, and having put my former religious group behind me, I was also excited to be able to reanimate the family-oriented Christmases that I membered from my childhood. This also lasted a few years, but began to peter out as marriages and jobs and different interests began to interfere. I became a bit jaded about the planning and work I'd put into a family gathering only to have several no-shows. Probably the last Christmas Eve gathering was 2018. We had left town for Thanksgiving, and had a small open house on Christmas Eve. The year before, 2017 we drove to New York to spend Christmas with my mother (whose birthday is Christmas) and siblings. For Christmas 2019 we got together for a movie on Christmas Day with some snacks afterward. The pandemic pretty much killed off any Christmas gatherings - I think the momentum is gone.
Now, as the second Covid Christmas is almost upon us, I reflect on my expectations for the holiday. The local family just doesn't seem interested in doing anything for Christmas. So we're not. I still put up Christmas decorations (no tree), watch Christmas movies and listen to jazz, blues and rock versions of Christmas songs, but we're not even attempting to organize a family Christmas. And that's okay. I've gotten comfortable with not beating myself up over not conforming to societal expectations for the holiday, and accepting that the warm and fuzzy memories of Christmases past don't necessarily paste onto the present.
This doesn't mean that I'm sad about it. Quite the opposite. I'm happy and thankful that I am in regular contact with family, both local and far-flung, and that we all can do what makes us happy on the holidays and any other day.
Happy Hogswatch!
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