A Great Escape?

I think we can all agree that the best time for a person to enjoy Christmas is when you're a child. For many people my age, I think Christmas is a time which has lost the wonder and charm it once held, and with no children of my own, opportunities to vicariously relive it don't really exist. Also I think many of the early twenties' also don't have as much money as we would want or budgeted for, and so the perennial obligatory trips to the crowded cathedrals of capitalism don't exactly bode well with the wallets we carry. Finally, being agnostic does not add any religious flavor to my holiday outlook as it would for many people, though I wouldn't consider this as necessary as some may argue (try reading Torie Bosch's defense of an athiest Christmas http://www.slate.com/id/2207374/). In short it is quite easy for many young single people like myself to watch Rudolph fly over us this holiday season.

There are of course many reasons to frown upon Christmas. I like to consider myself decently educated, and I do retain much of the youthful idealism of my university days, so it is hard to watch an advertisement aimed at convincing you that 'family' and 'Christmas' are synonymous with 'camera phone' and 'warranty', and not think of all the reasons to get angry. I am sure that many people have argued that the Christmas before being hijacked by corporations and the bleached-white mess we see now is almost completely unrecognizable and so for this reason and others, most people, I would wager, have at one time or another fantasized about being able to escape from Christmas just once, and I most certainly counted myself among them. This year, living in Japan has allowed me to do just that: avoid Christmas. Is this good or bad?

Before I get into that, I should first say a few words about how living in Japan has allowed me to avoid Christmas. Easy. It simply doesn't exist here. Well that's not entirely true, but the attempt, if it exists at all, reminds me of the basketball game in high school where I took a free throw and didn't even hit the backboard. From what I've gathered, the holiday traditions which exist here consist of Christmas cakes sold at department stores, trips to various places to see "winter illumination" (Christmas light displays), and fake snow in the clothing displays. I think the only time I ever saw Santa was on the train advertisements, but he was dressed in green and white and instead of gifts, was giving advice on how to be environmentally friendly (a digression not to be condemned, by the way).

So having effectively been insulated from Christmas, I can now comment on whether such emancipatory daydreams, once fulfilled, are gratifying. The answer, rather unsatisfying itself, is yes and no. Yes in that I miss the commercialized Christmas as much as I would a tumor, but no for all the other reasons, the reasons that matter: family, friends, food, festivities, and fun, just to start with the letter F, and all these things, on balance, far outweigh the ephemeral discontents of the season. Of course, I didn't have to go all the way across the Pacific to realize this. I suppose I knew it all along. I suppose that when we're bombarded with all the messages from various marketing departments, we sometimes just want to forget it all. But there is a way to get rid of all that corporate red-and-white junk and the advice comes from none other than Paul Anka and Lisa Simpson:

Paul: To stop those monsters one-two-three,
here's a fresh new way that's trouble-free,
Its got Paul Anka's guarantee....
Lisa: Guarantee void in Tennessee
Together: Just don't look, Just don't look.
Just don't look, Just don't look.

So next year, if all goes according to plan, I will once again celebrate Christmas in Canada, where it is not pronounced "kurisumasu", and the food is more than a white cake. And, if all goes according to other peoples' plans, the ads will start Nov. 1st. But this time, more than ever, I'll be looking forward to it, and not at the TV.

On that note I will finish with the timeless words of Dr. Seuss in a book once read to me by my mom:

And the Grinch, with his grinch-feet ice-cold in the snow, Stood puzzling and puzzling: "How could it be so?" "It came with out ribbons! It came without tags!" "It came without packages, boxes or bags!" And he puzzled three hours, till his puzzler was sore. Then the Grinch thought of something he hadn't before! "Maybe Christmas," he thought, "doesn't come from a store." "Maybe Christmas...perhaps...means a little bit more!"