beyond the holiday glare

I recently read a terrific essay by a friend about a Secret Santa exchange at work. At first she was super Scroogy. In her words, she had resigned from the holiday frenzy years ago, the stress shadowing the anticipated joy.

But then she got caught up in the fun. She discovered details about a long time co-worker she would not have known had she not randomly picked this woman’s name. Stealthy gift-giving became a gratifying challenge. She thrilled at her colleague’s surprise, which inspired more giving. My friend ends her tender story with this image: the two of them, after the reveal, knee to knee, in rapt conversation at the holiday party. Secret Santa connected them in way that may not have otherwise happened, the spirit of the holidays outshining the stress that had eclipsed her joy in previous seasons.

This captures what a Secret Santa exchange feels like: sleuthing, seeking perfect gifts, surprising the recipient, feigning innocence at their surprise. And conversely: finding gifts at unexpected times and in unexpected places. All that generosity wrapped in mystery.

I cradle my thoughtful friend’s experience in one palm. I cradle, in the other, what I know about the things that preoccupy us during the holidays: food, lights, travel, festivities, gifts. Did you know 99% of what is extracted, manufactured, shipped and purchased is trashed after six months of use? That singing flowerpot, the glow in the dark toilet bowl, the bluetooth hairbrush, even the cute sweater—all of it, junked.

I hold these both as I navigate my own holidays: decorate, cook, bake, send cards, buy gifts, wrap gifts, attend parties. Also, if you have kids like me, multiply these expectations by the number of offspring. Also, find meaning in it. 

I struggle to find meaning since the holiday rituals seem overly focused on consumption. Did you know the average American consumes 2X more today than 50 years ago while happiness continues to decline? In fact, Americans' life expectancy is also in decline as a result of several epidemics: guns, drugs, obesity and despair.

Think about that.

The United States is roughly 5% of the world’s population, consumes 30% of its resources and produces 30% of the waste yet Americans are in despair. 

What are we doing? Why do we keep doing it? And why do we start doing it earlier and earlier. Because of what I know about the ecological and human cost of our voracious yet unfulfilling consumption, I too want to resign from the holidays.

I write this during the night, December 21, our shortest day in the northern hemisphere. Holiday lights flicker along my street. It seems like every year more people put up lights; maybe in the words of Susan Cooper, ‘to drive the dark away…burn beseeching fires all night long to keep the year alive...’

I wonder at the lights. How we beseech them to dispel darkness of all forms. 

How our longest night is longest day in the southern hemisphere. Indeed, too, how the global North is inexorably linked to the global South, where the production of things that dazzle for barely six months darken other lives with an existential threat. May we understand how our own insatiable hunger for more things to dispel our darkness, spreads darkness. 

As days in the northern hemisphere lengthen, may too our understanding of our connection to those whose days we shorten beyond the earth’s rotation, for our fleeting wants. May we seek to understand their need like my friend learned her coworker’s wants. May we too provide for the wellbeing of the other, the stranger, who does not need to be among us for us to do so. May we consider how our lives, not what we purchase, can be Secret Santa. May we be knee to knee, in rapt communion with the unexpected, the unknown. The other.

During the holidays, I miss the stars. The constellations beyond our garish displays, beyond our garish busyness. Quiet steadfast light mapping darkness toward joy and peace. May we find our light, 'as promise wakens in the sleeping land.'

myth: ablutions

Once upon a time, people crafted everything they needed with their own hands. They relied on each other for what they couldn’t do or make themselves. This was called community. They had community with the earth that sustained them and each other.

To ease their labor, they improved their technology. They tasted leisure and wanted more. Others saw that profit could be had from this desire for leisure. Technology, the earth and people were then diverted to make machines and to make things, rather than husbanded equitably to provide for all.

People left their crafting for what became known as work to make money to buy the things no one knew how to make anymore. People were unable to feed and clothe themselves. They did not know how to make water or heat. Because people unlearned how to heal themselves, they feared and hated death. 

Because they relied on things, their hearts forgot the meaning of community and they became attached instead to things. Their impotence created a hunger for more, a fear of losing things. Their appetite was as insatiable as their dissatisfaction. Thus community became enslaved, sacrificed, burned, upturned to produce things. 

Because it was too painful to reckon with their impotence, too painful to reckon with their appetite, too painful to reckon with their wreckage, they devised rituals to atone. Each week, they separated recycling from trash. The more zealous ones, further separated materials into compost and glass. The most pious offered their electronic offal, their electric detritus at designated shrines. Still others poured what was no longer useful into trash bags for the poor and needy. 

They emptied bins, closets and garages and they deemed it righteous. These ablutions cleansed them, freed them to consume more.