have yourself a merry little

We decorated the Christmas tree last week and Amy was more excited than I’ve ever seen her. At four she’s finally old enough to sustain both an understanding of and interest in the seasonal holiday. She managed to stretch the activity over two days, involve both D and I, and even rope me into making Christmas fairies and mantelpiece decorations. It was nice to spend time with her, see her so happy and involved, and even to get a bit of craft into the picture.

I look forward to this time of year, and I’m glad that here in Oz we get to celebrate Christmas in the lazy summer. For me the two are completely intermingled. Christmas makes me think of beach holidays and relaxed times with friends and family, great gatherings and special meals, hanging out at the local pool, eating icy poles and having picnics, playing games and watching crappy non-ratings period TV movies. It’s also a great time for reading books and doing projects and the things the hurly burly of everyday life crowds out. Christmas is the pinnacle of those times for me, an excuse for everyone to make an effort to be together, to get along, to do stuff together.

But there’s a little piece of me that is feeling a growing disquiet and I’ve been working hard to understand exactly what it is.

At first it started out as a kind of dread about the massive influx of presents. Every year we shop and spend and give and receive a lot of stuff we don’t need and often don’t even want. Amy’s room gets another layer of stuff I break my back to tidy and care for, and a whole lot of stuff goes into the garbage and off to the op shop. There’s guilt and confusion and awkwardness. And I hate that I see my four year old’s brain morphing into the I want monster. An insatiable consuming stuff devouring machine with expectations about plenty that I find obscene.

This year I feel so deeply attuned to the terrible shape of our planet and environment, and this kind of gluttonous consumption is symptomatic of the thinking that landed us here in the first place. I really don’t want to be a part of it at all. We’ve run it down a little by instituting a kris kringle system amongst the adults of the family, but somehow this doesn’t seem like enough to me. I want to go backwards in the stuff stakes, not just forward at a slower pace.

But there’s more to what’s bugging me, and it has to do with Santa. The thing is, Santa to me is just one big values vaccuum. He only exists to motivate more buying, more getting. Almost no one talks about Saint Nicholas, the guy Santa is based on, whose sole existence was about making presents to give to poor and needy children. You know, kids who had nothing else, rather than delivering items on a list to add to the pile you already have. He seems like a pretty good role model to me, and a whole different kettle of fish to Santa.

Plus, it seems counter intuitive to me to create this fictional Santa guy, spin a whole stack of tall tales to explain how he can do the impossible (deliver presents to every kid on the planet in a night – yeah, right), only to come clean about him in a few year’s time and have your kids look at you as if to say, you mean you just made all that stuff up?! Why would you think that was OK?

It’s not like the lie is even justified by his roots in the moral and spiritual teachings we want our kids to learn. He’s not a comfort to children in distress in the way angels are after a death in the family, he’s not a symbol of love and peace like Jesus, he’s not a psychological device to turn something possibly scary and traumatic into a positive milestone of development like the tooth fairy. As I see it he doesn’t really serve any higher purpose and he doesn’t represent something bigger and better than ordinary people.

I’m aware that when I say all this there are a whole lot of people thinking what a sour old cow I must be. Santa doesn’t need a purpose, Santa is fun. He’s a once a year folly to bring joy and excitement to children and who wants to deny their kids that? I am sure it won’t convince any of you if I say I’m not like that. Really. I can be fun and Amy’s life has plenty of joy and excess and stuff already in it. She’s happy and safe and well stimulated – and not just with sensible educational toys. There’s a frightening amount of plastic and glitter and soft toys and loud musical instruments in her possession.

I’m not a grinch or a scrooge or a particularly austere person, but when I take a step back from the whirl of the season I feel ill at ease with the frenzy that Sata drives. To what extent does weaving a little childhood magic make it OK to tell lies to kids about how the world works, to use the threat of not getting presents from Santa as a motivation for good behaviour, to sit them on the lap of some guy in a padded polyester suit when it’s sweltering hot and get them to really focus on working out all the stuff they want want want?

I was cross examined by a bunch of Amy’s peers at kinder this morning about whether Amy was coming to the Christmas party (the answer is yes), but more importantly was she getting a present from Santa (the answer again yes – for $10 a head the kinder organises books for kids from the visiting Santa)? Was she having her photo taken with Santa (yep, last weekend my mother-in-law did the yearly ritual at a shopping centre), and would he give her a present too (yes, a plastic watch that keeps bad time and is covered all over with ads for Ice Age 2)? Was Santa going to come to our house (over my dead body I wanted to scream)?

Was there anything good in any of that?

And there’s some other stuff about Santa and Christmas I’m struggling with. And it’s a thing about living in Australia and celebrating things in a way that mean something to the reality of our lives. The great big boots and furry suit that guy wears are a health and safety nightmare in our climate, and all that snowy imagery and winter food seems entirely misplaced. Most of the time Christmas day here begs for luscious ripe stone fruit and summer pudding and barbequed prawns, cold meats and fresh cool salads. Why would we heat the house running an oven for hours to cook a roast, or boil a pudding or sip eggnog or hot chocolate whilst wearing our lightest of summer dresses and trying not to leave sweat stains on the furniture? Why do we cover our Christmas trees with snowflakes and sleighs and animals that have never set foot or hoof on our continent?

Don’t get me wrong, the Northern Hemisphere Christmases I have had have been magical – I was thrilled to my socks to wake and see snow on the ground, I loved tucking into a great big warming meal in the middle of the day and I have nothing at all against reindeer. In part it was magical precisely because it all made sense.

But from my perspective down here in Oz the traditions of Christmas seem to come from nowhere. What these rituals say to me is that we follow blindly beyond the point of relevance, and still believe that real life, important life, is something we imitate from somewhere else, not something we make from our experience and history. My daughter cares more about reindeer than kangaroos, and this year she’ll be singing about Rudolph, even while she’s eating Skippy.

I don’t want to be a sour old cow, and I don’t want Amy to grow up feeling like she’s missing out, but I just can’t feel good about the values and life lessons this Christmas deal brings. I recognise that we learn what’s right and good through cultural traditions, and that they are a really important part of finding meaning in life as well as having fun. So I’m trying to find other ways to weave magic, other ways to help Amy learn about who we are, what’s important and find joy. I’m looking for some new rituals and traditions that will help us celebrate all that’s right with life, all the good fortune we have, all the promise that tomorrow brings.

I’m not looking to veer into fake nationalistic pride at being an Aussie either. It might be as simple as starting with a Christmas tree that belongs in my country, a banksia or grevillia perhaps. We might make some decorations that include the animals we know and love. Perhaps we’ll write a story or two.

But seriously, I’m looking for suggestions - some anti-stuff suggestions, some making traditions suggestions, some great ways to celebrate suggestions. Any ideas floating around out there?