Festivus
I must have been in about year nine, sitting in some history or Australian studies class one April, when the teacher (not sure I remember which one) started telling us about what happened on Anzac Day.
Sure, we all knew about it. As Australians, we’d been told about it since primary school: Gallipoli, the Ottomans, and about Simpson and his donkey.
The teacher gave a brief description of how the events of the Gallipoli landing unfolded, and how the campaign resulted in the loss of life of thousands of Allied troops, including many Australians.
A voice came from somewhere to my right. “Yep, we beat em.”
I looked at who’d said it—a kid called Ken—thinking “Rubbish, it was a slaughter.”
Then I realised. Ken was a first-generation Australian. Ken’s parents were Turkish.
And yet Ken wasn’t required at school the next day, Anzac Day, because it was a public holiday. A public holiday to commemorate Australian and allied soldiers who died in a specific battle in WWII.
For all I know, Ken’s family might have just sat at home quietly on Anzac Day, caught up on some washing, mown the lawn, maybe wash the car. But they might just have likely have packed a picnic lunch, gone down to the river and had a good time of it, or maybe, just maybe they may have even spared a thought for soldiers from their homeland who had died in that or other battles. I don’t know. And I can’t ask him. We were never that close.
Likewise, on Australia Day, Ken’s family got the day off. I took it from his “we beat ‘em” comment that his family still identified heavily with their Turkish background. I’m not saying they shouldn’t have been given days off for these holidays, in fact I’m rambling a bit, so I’ll get to the point.
For a lot of holidays we’re given the day off whether we like it or not. And this post is actually about Christmas.
We don’t say that the Kens of this world, or their families, should be denied a day off on Anzac Day or Australia Day because they identify with a different culture. There’s no real expectation on anyone to show up to dawn services or citizenship ceremonies. We don’t expect people who get a day off for the Melbourne Cup to care about horseracing. It’s just a day off.
The point: people don’t necessarily observe the true reason for a holiday.
Christmas is a funny one. Because people tend to observe Christmas whether or not they are really part of the Christian faith. We put up a tree, decorate the house, give gifts. We eat a hearty lunch/dinner and live off ham sandwiches for a week. Some organised people (who aren’t me) still send cards, and we may even sing carols, possibly at an organised carol-singing event.
But we don’t all go to church.
There are always cards or leaflets or posters that say we shouldn’t forget “the reason for the season”. That reason (they say) is Jesus.
And I say “bollocks”.
For my family, Christmas is a really special time. We do all the traditional things on Christmas day: getting together, gift giving, Christmas dinner, then lots of socialising and possibly napping. It has nothing to do with Jesus and everything to do with Family. My siblings and I are all grown up and we and our families are spread across two states but Christmas is the one event that, almost unfailingly, brings us all together. And that’s a good thing. I know other people can have issues with family but for us, it’s a pretty good time.
But Jesus is nowhere to be seen. Sure, we have been brought up in a typical community within a Western Christian culture; there was some private education thrown in the mix, which did some harm, some good, but none of us is really serious about religion.
So besides the fact that the Christian church appropriated whatever pagan midwinter festival was around at the time and supplanted it with their own meaning and traditions, regardless of that…
I think Christmas should be regarded as a secular holiday.
Even though some see it as a celebration of the birth of their mythical saviour, I think most of us just take the holiday and apply our own traditions to it. And for a lot of us, those traditions involve similar activities based around some notion of family.
So, despite this being a personal blog, I say bugger the directives of several government agencies who deem we’re only allowed to say non-specific things like ‘season’s greetings’, I’d like to wish everyone a Merry Christmas. Enjoy your family and those close to you, even though I don’t believe in any gods and don’t regularly attend any place of religious worship (and when I do, it’s not for that purpose).
My sister showed me this video last year, which I think sums it up, and rhymes nicely too.
