Ho Ho Hmm

My partner is an avid facebooker and, recently, she relayed to me a comment from one of her friends. This comment said:

Why do atheists celebrate Christmas when it is all about the birth of Jesus?

Now, I am an atheist and, as I exclaimed to my partner (after a lengthy rant she had heard before), this particular friend was lucky she was not in my friends list or I would have torn strips off her. What absolutely drives me crazy about this kind of comment is that it assumes that Christmas is a fundamentally Christian event and, further, infers some exclusivity to Christians for enjoyment of the event, completely ignoring historical and social facts (not to mention whether their religion holds any veracity in the first place).

To begin with, history, Christmas is not a Christian holiday. Originally the celebrations that would take place on 25 December were associated with the winter solstice. Almost every pre-Industrial society celebrated the winter solstice going back well before the supposed birth of Jesus was commemorated on this particular date, a time when Winter was supposedly at its worst and, therefore, the cycle of rebirth and death was to begin again. Trappings like the Christmas tree, the Yule log and the giving of gifts are all pre-Christian traditions subsumed by the Catholic Church as they attempted to convert the heathens.

In fact, for some time during the middle ages, the Catholic Church actually banned many of the traditional aspects of Christmas and, I think, Christmas itself on the “suspicion” that it was actually a pagan festival!

Then there are the social facts of Christmas. Australia has something like 7% church attendance nowadays. So, in a population of some 21 million people, a mere 1.5 million actually attend some form of church. Now I realise that church attendance is hardly the measure of whether a person holds to religious tenets (or, at least, claims to), but I think there is a good argument to say that these people represent the vast majority of those that actually care about the religious aspects of Christmas. Contrast this with those people who claim no religion, some 19% or 4 million Australians, and you can start to see how redundant the religious message is.

Furthermore, Australia has Constitutional prohibitions on the institution of a national religion and has significant minorities from cultures that either don’t celebrate Christmas at all (the Chinese community, for example) or celebrate it only due to the preponderance of public holidays granted to the workforce at the time. The overwhelming iconography of the season is of Santa Claus, reindeer, pine trees and gifts rather than mangers, wandering stars, wise men and divine infants and, were it not for the tenacity of the Christmas carol, we probably wouldn’t even hear these ideas expressed either.

Christmas has become, and may well have been for a very long time, secular in nature. It has long since ceased being a religious festival for the vast majority of people and has, instead, migrated into either a consumerist obligation, a convenient break or an observance of the bonds of family and friends, depending on who you ask (and, indeed, when you ask them).

This brings me to what I actually do believe about Xmas (I have no qualms using this abbreviation).

I recently heard a song that I believe was penned in 2009 but which I didn’t hear until this month. It is called White Wine in the Sun and was written by Tim Minchin. There are two versions currently around, one by Tim himself and one by Kate Miller Heidke, both performers I respect. I do prefer Tim’s version, simply because I think he is more sensitive to the flow of the text (although, it probably helps his cause that he is backed by an orchestra!). But either way, it is the text of the song that is important. It goes something like this:

I really like Christmas

It’s sentimental, I know,

But I just really like it.

I am hardly religious

I’d rather break bread with Dawkins than Desmond Tutu

To be honest

And yes I have all of the usual objections

To consumerism,

To the commercialisation of an ancient religion

To the Westernisation of a dead Palestinian press ganged into selling Playstations and beer,

But I still really like it.

I’m looking forward to Christmas,

Though I’m not expecting a visit from Jesus.

I’ll be seeing my Dad, my brother and sisters, my Gran and my Mum

They’ll be drinking white wine in the sun.

I don’t go in for ancient wisdom.

I don’t believe just ‘cause ideas are tenacious it means they’re worthy.

I get freaked out by churches.

Some of the hymns that they sing have nice chords

But the lyrics are spooky,

And yes I have all of the usual objections

To the mis-education of children who, in tax exempt institutions,

Are taught to externalise blame,

And to feel ashamed,

And to judge things as plain right or wrong,

But I quite like the songs.

I’m not expecting big presents

The old combination of socks, jocks and chocolates is just fine by me.

Cause I’ll be seeing my Dad, my brother and sisters, my Gran and my Mum

They’ll be drinking white wine in the sun.

And you my baby girl,

My jetlagged infant daughter,

Will be handed round the room,

Like a puppy at a primary school.

And you won’t understand,

But you will learn someday,

That wherever you are and whatever you face

These are the people who’ll make you feel safe in this world,

My sweet blue eyed girl

And if my baby girl when you’re 21 or 31,

And Christmas comes around,

And you find yourself 9000 miles from home,

You’ll know whatever comes,

Your brothers and sisters and me and your Mum

Will be waiting for you in the sun.

Whenever you come,

Your brothers and sisters, your aunts and your uncles, your grandparents, cousins and me and your Mum

Will be waiting for you I the sun

Drinking white wine in the sun.

I really like Christmas

It’s sentimental, I know…

Now, I wholeheartedly suggest that you, at the very least, go and listen to this song on YouTube (here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fCNvZqpa-7Q) and, if you are inclined as I was, to LOVE it, I also suggest you purchase it from iTunes because, quite frankly (in my estimation) Tim Minchin’s lyrics here are pure genius.

I have only three qualms with this song as it pertains to my personal experience:

• I don’t like white wine and will only drink red wine.
• I don’t have any sisters and all of my grandparents live in the UK, therefore being unavailable to drink in the sun with me at Christmas time.
• I have a son, not a daughter (funnily enough of a very similar age to Tim’s).

Obviously these quibbles are minor and simply due to a recontextualisation of the song to my own circumstances. Tim can hardly be blamed for this.

In every other respect this song perfectly encapsulates my own philosophy on Christmas.

I do have a lot of, potentially insurmountable, philosophical issues with Christmas as a religious holiday and as a consumerist wet dream. The lead up to Christmas can be harrowing and, even on the day, the travel that is involved (because both myself and my partner come from families where the parents have divorced and re-coupled) can be taxing. But generally, on the day (and/or on Christmas Eve or Boxing Day) I will find myself relaxing in the company of people I love, sipping at a red or a beer, and just feeling content and safe.

That’s right Christians, Christmas isn’t about your god, it is about my (and, one would hope, your) family.

And when I say family I am not talking about just the nuclear family. My family consists of my parents and their new spouses, my brother, his wife and step son, my step brothers and sisters and their partners and children, my partner’s parents and their partners, my sisters and brother in law and their partners, my foster sister (unofficially fostered into both wings of the family for about a decade now), my partner and my son. Amongst this group are several who have chosen not to marry formally (me included) and there is almost not a standard nuclear unit amongst the lot of them.

So, whoever you are, whatever you believe, whatever your family looks like and however far you choose to extend it and define its boundaries or members, wherever you intend to spend it and whatever you choose to drink during it, I hope that your Christmas is a pleasant one, spent in the company of people you love and who make you feel safe.

Merry Christmas everyone.