Now there’s a question that’s difficult to answer.
From the purely religious point of view, it could be that God keeps his promises to send himself to his own people to redeem his own world from his own wrath by dying for a particular period which seems to suggest that the true meaning of Christmas is that God prefers to do things in a highly circuitous (not to say highly bizarre) way. It also raises the question of who was running the show for the three days in question.
Religious scholars, however, tell us that the birth of Christ in a stable with shepherds abiding the fields probably occurred in April, not December when both parties were significantly less likely to die of hypothermia. So it may be that we can’t associate any religious significance at all to Christmas Day.
The true meaning of Christmas may be that presents feel good; that we get a warm feeling and moral brownie points from giving things to other people. It also feels good to receive but self-gratification is not something that sounds high minded so we don’t mention that too much. The reality of it is that, while there’s certainly a great deal of self-sacrifice that goes into gift giving, there’s very little pleasure in it. When we receive a gift we know that the meaning behind it is that the person has sweated blood to get it owing to the fact that they left it until three days before Christmas to go to the shops to buy it because they hadn’t thought of us at all until that point. Going to a shopping centre three days before Christmas is tantamount to self-immolation.
Receiving presents often doesn’t feel good either, but you have to pretend that it does. Often the present bought three days before Christmas, while not being three French hens, might as well be for all the good it is to you. They were obliged to buy you a present (thereby pretending that you’re someone that they think of constantly) and you are obliged to play along with the pretense and “like it” (despite the fact that a Christmas themed novelty corkscrew is not something that you’d ever buy for yourself on the grounds that you’re still at least partially sane). That may well be what Christmas is all about; artificial expressions of unfelt emotions.
For many people, the last time they really felt the thrill of gifts received was when they got them from Santa. The heart quickening thrill of Christmas Eve and the mental fireworks show of Christmas Morning last from about age three, when you start to have some interest in where things come from and age eight when you develop an understanding that things tend not to happen just because you wish for them (unless, of course, it’s the lottery in which case the belief that good fortune or the universals laws of fairness guarantee you a win eventually last well into middle age). Santa is real to you for about five years but remembrance of things past is the source of Christmas joy for the rest of your life. This is why Santa can sell you anything from pizza to floor tiles at Christmas time and why parents are so desperate that their offspring should smile while terrified to the point of incontinence sitting on Santa’s knee; they need to get those memories made to set them up for future happiness.
Nostalgia for things that never were is a strong feature of Christmas. The ideal Christmas for many people appears to be film versions of the Cratchett’s dinner from A Christmas Carol. Hot baked dinners, Christmas crackers, smiles on the rosy faces of children and unbridled joy in the company of kith and kin. No-one alive has ever had a Christmas like that and it’s a good bet that most Victorians didn’t either – drunk Uncle James was no more welcome then than now and just as many top hat wearing gentlemen as board short wearing blokes thought that turkey tasted quite a bit like cranberry flavoured cardboard.
Without laboring a cliché, strained extended family gatherings are also a feature of most people’s Christmas. If the family live far afield and see each other infrequently it may well be that they don’t actually like each other. For the festive season, however, they have to pretend that they do – for nan’s sake. So tongues are bitten, fights are suppressed and spouses are steered to a diplomatic afternoon nap when the Christmas cheer has been overindulged.
So what is Christmas all about, son? On the evidence it appears to be delusion, deception, pretense and nostalgia, well decorated with tinsel and lights; much anticipated and gratefully dismissed for another year once over.
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