I, for one, am very happy that the holidays are a dim memory and the next
batch are still pleasantly distant, these times when we are obliged to
participate in meaningless events, and we'd better enjoy them, too.
Schedules are clogged with observatory functions, beginning with
Thanksgiving, when we must eat turkey in company, coming to a crescendo
with Christmas, when the parties begin during the first weeks of December,
double-up by the weekend before, and ending with New Year's, which we must
toast in company, or become objects of pity.
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| "...the holidays, those appalling absences..."
--Contre Sainte-Beuve
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A variety of the champion neurotics among us bristle at such expectations.
We might be deeply involved in a beloved project, or long for an unsociable
evening in which to finish a great book. The demands of the moment are
enough to dissolve whatever equilibrium we might have enjoyed. Even worse,
had one's sense of well-being been dashed by unfestive sources-- a loss, a
relationship on the rocks, financial disaster-- we need to appear cheery
and social nonetheless, through events at which people seem especially
happy while we are not.
Even if life is going well, with no loved one in mortal peril, no
relationship just over or nearly so and a reasonable balance in the bank, a
person with a huge sense of compassion is stabbed constantly in the holiday
season. The sight of a homeless person minus turkey, unlikely to get
presents, not drinking champagne because they are without friends and
family evokes both sympathy and self-chastisement at not being grateful for
the events that neurosis makes you resist. How can one be extravagant and
merry with the knowledge that half the world lives in poverty, and an
upleasant proportion of it in loneliness?
The pleasure of holidays belongs mostly to children. Thanksgiving is a day
off at school, a huge dinner; Christmas means presents, a tree and a lot of
sweets. Families with young children share their excitement, and have the
delight of making it possible for them. The childless need to find other
excuses.
The act of thanksgiving, I would think, is wasted when limited to a single
day. Anyone lucky enough to have reasons for gratitude on the third
Thursday in November should be feeling it daily: good morning, I'm alive, I
can eat a huge dinner if I feel like it, I have great friends to spend time
with, I can pay the bills! As for Christmas, if the Christ part holds no
meaning for you, what is the point?
The holidays rob us of the pleasures of daily life that we love best. If
they fall on weekdays, like Thanksgiving Thursdays, we are completely
deprived of that beloved moment of the day, full of promise but usually
just demands for money, the arrival of the mail. We can't stop and see our
favorite smiling faces at the corner cafe because it's closed; those of us
who do not have the pleasure of getting a day off of work, we of the
self-employed and entrepreneurial variety, can expect no calls from
potential investors, or clients offering that much-wanted paying work, and
all the forward momentum of our endeavors is squelched for as many days as
the holiday might demand. Forget the library, the daily trip to the
splendid local market; the air is still on these holy days, the cities fail
to hum.
Why is it that arguments with loved ones, and the demise of relationships,
so often coincides with these theoretically happy days? Surely the expense,
the demands, and the expectations of a special sense of well-being must
play a part in this odd affair. Not everyone will have this experience, but
many of us will: that fine individual we adore might turn into a raving
monstrosity for the festivities. Is it because they, like us, are feeling
the strain of maintaining a happy face for the holidays, and wish they
needn't be obliged?
In an ongoing effort to limit the stresses of the holiday season, I
suggested years ago to my family and friends that we stop giving Christmas
presents. To my surprise, almost everyone agreed readily. This might have
been a blow to the national economy, but a wonderfully liberating sensation
for us. We only got things for children, and had a much easier time.
I do not mean to suggest that I dislike celebrations, or the giving of
presents; it's easy and delightful to find things for people you love,
except around their birthdays or at Christmas. Celebrations bring you
together with people you don't often get to see, and I truly enjoy some of
the holidays that are festive by choice and not expectation, like
Halloween. In San Francisco, the Halloween season lasts about a week, from
the weekend before to the weekend after the actual date, and including the
annual Day of the Dead celebration in the Mission. For nearly 2% of the
year, you can wander the streets disguised as a Klingon or a Q-tip or your
opposite gender, and the mail gets delivered every day except Sunday. The
annual party here at Proust Headquarters is massive, and a minor social
legend, drawing friends of friends of friends, friends of friends, and
friends, as well as people who heard about it at another party, jamming all
two floors of this formerly grand Edwardian.
We also celebrate another occasion here, the 12th day of Christmas on
January 6, a day when merriment and festivity are virtually unknown in
America. A day or so before the party, we scour the streets for the most
perfect of the discarded Christmas trees, and bring home that one great
thing of the season, the smell of pine, and decorate them with the strings
of lights we have twinkling all year round. Each guest will bring a
present, marked male, female or either, and have a piece of the 12th Night
cake. The person to find a bean in his or her slice will decide who gets
which presents.
Our personal holiday season overlaps that of the rest of the country. It
begins with Halloween, with the Proust Wake about three weeks after and
12th Night at the end. After 12th Night we breathe a sigh of relief, and
get on with being thankful for every day, until the Proust Wake, around the
next November 18. The Wake is the signal that the conventional holiday
season is upon us, time to exercise our neuroses until the new year begins.
