"The holidays" is that time of year we fall off the wagon. We chuck all those good intentions, eat stuff we shouldn't, buy a big pile of stuff we know we can't afford and party far more than we can survive.
The time between Thanksgiving (in the US) and Christmas/Hanukkah/Kwanza is when all the bad behavior comes out. It starts with a day when I eat lots of crazy food. Then we have a day of rabid consumption. I spend like someone else will pay the bill. I encourage children to want everything in the stores and why not? I want everything in the stores. Rampant consumerism is the norm for these four weeks. We're stocking up on amusements and food to keep us entertained and filled during the long dark days. I know its crazy, but I do it anyway.
Every year I scratch my head after its over wondering was it worth it. It kind strange, we are celebrating the birthday of somebody which we all know was born months later. We do it with symbols and rituals that didn't exist when he was alive or have nothing at all to do with his life. We do a good job of ignoring all he told us in this season. Parents spend less time with their children, children less time with their aged parents, but what gift does parent or child really want? Time spent together.
Long ago, before preserved food, the last week of December marked the beginning of winter. Winter was the season we starved. No fresh vegetables or fruit. There wasn't even enough grass to keep many animals alive except a few breeders and a milk cow. Everything else was harvested. The excess animals slaughtered. We salted what we could and hid a few tough veggies in the root cellar. From then on it was funky food, jerky and turnips until mid-spring, if we were lucky. Otherwise, nothing. Lent pretty much made a virtue of necessity.
So we had this last blowout party that lasted four weeks. It went by a lot of names, but today it's "the holidays". We ate like there was no tomorrow.
We've always had children, but childhood is new, dating from the early nineteenth century as reaction to the repugnance of child labor practices in the industrial revolution. Parenthood goes back to the beginning of humanity but the idea of the parents as nurturers of childhood only dates from the invention of modern childhood. The earlier model was the authoritarian parent in which the parent was the ruler and the child the subject without recourse to appeal. In the parents old age this role would reverse leaving the the aged parent powerless anciently. The idea of catering to a parent's wishes is modern and not universal even 200 years later.
Back to reality. A bit over 2000 years ago a male child was born to very young woman who was known to be pregnant at the time she got married. He was born into a family that had no wealth or status in a backwater village. We only know two events for the first 30 years of his life: he caused a commotion with the temple priests just before his bar mitzvah and his family lived as fugitives from the authorities for a few years. Otherwise, nothing of note. Then one day he and his cousin decided to become itinerant preachers. They wandered around living off the generosity of a few relatives and friends but otherwise living pretty rough. Some of the things they said got the authorities stirred up and it got so bad that one was assassinated and the other executed on a pretext. His friends kept telling stories about him and the things he said and a few believed them and kept the story alive.
The story says nothing kind about the wealthy or powerful. It says nothing about any commercial activity or consumption that is positive. It says nothing good about eating great quantities of food. It tells nothing of decorated trees or houses. It condemns nobody for disobedience of authority, adultery, inappropriate choices of entertainment or courtship practices. What it does condemn is fixation on wealth and political power. It condemns religious rigidity, lack of compassion and empathy, toleration of poverty and suffering and greed.
When the kids get greedy, when the adults get too busy, when we don't have the time for each other and when we are quick to condemn, what would He say? Maybe "forgive them for they know not what they do". What would He tell me? I think, "Neither do I condemn thee; go, and sin no more".
As I go through this season, I try to remember that impoverished, scruffy kid from nowhere who told us to take care of each other, to do good for its own sake and to put principles above the law. I remember that He changed the world.
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