Underneath my yellow skin

Tag Archives: holidays

Feel jolly, but not holly

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More on Christmas. Here was yesterday’s post, and I’m going to continue my musing. I have hated Christmas and I have been studiedly indifferent to Christmas, but now, I’m feeling warmly about the holiday time. Not Christmas itself, but community. Atnd being alive.

As I said in the last post, it’s been a long road to get where I am now. This year, I’m feeling warm and cozy about, not Christmas, but about the holiday season and how much I love the people who are meaninngful to me. My two besties, my Taiji teacher, my brother, my nibling and their brothers, my cat–of course!!–and people on the periphery.

I love the forums to which I belong. Well, one forum. The RKG Discord. However, I am starting to feel a bit…

Here’s the thing. I get to the end of things and then I am done. With websites, if they don’t evolve, then I get bored. The same thing with the same comments by the same people…what’s the point in that? I used to follow politics back when Obama was president. And I would get tired of people being so limited in their points of view. I am sure they would say the same things about me, by the way. That’s the nature of people. They don’t hugely change on the daily. It would be a wild and woolly time if they did. But it’s frustrating when I constantly butt up against the limits of each person.

That’s what I’m starting to feel about the RKG Discord. I like the people very much. Most of them are really kind and caring. But. (You knew there was going to be a but, right?) The limits to the understanding of life outside their own experiences are very restrictive.  Here’s the thing. RKG are three cis het white Western dudes. They’re great guys, yes, but they’re still very much in the mainstream themselves.

To that point, their commenters are much like them. The vast majority are cis het white dudes–which is othering at times. Not on purpsoe, obviously, but just because that’s what they know. There is a channel for the grot, and it’s interesting when certain topics come up. Someone brought up polyamory and asked where all his poly people were at. The three of us who responded were all queer people (of varying alternate gender identities). The white straight dudes (which the guy asking was) were all quick to say NO WAY NUH UH HELL NO! Well, one was not, but that was a more complicated response. He wasn’t pro-poly, per se.


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Have a holly jolly–nope

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As I am writing this, it ‘s the eve before the eve before Christmas. In other words, it’s December 23rd. We had our last Taiji class of the year at noon, and my teacher was the only one who showed up in person. There were six of us Zooming in, which was strange. It’s usually five or six people in person and two or three of us on Zoom. I assume it’s because it’s the holidays, but I’m not sure.

During the break, people were talking about what they were doing for Christmas. One couple were making cookies all day today, and another woman talked about how she was going to be cooking after class as well.

Last week, another classmate had a party to go to after class. Online, everyone is steeped in Christmas. I have had a few people ask me what I’m doing, which did not bother me. I don’t celerbate Christmas, but I did not bristle at being asked, either.

I have in yeras past. I don’t celebrate and it can get annoying after awhile when everyone assumes you do. “What are you doing for Christmas?” becme the bane of  my existence.

Side note: My mother is very wedded to traditions. This is an issue with us because I am most empthatically not. We have had this argument all my life–whether tradition is good or bad. She once said in exasperation that just becasue something was traditional, it didn’t mean it was bad.

I immediately retorted that just because something was traditional, it didn’t mean it was good, either. She was not happy with that, but she couldn’t really argue. My point was that it should not be automatic either way. Yes, I side-eyed doing something just because it was said to be tradition,  but that was because a lot of nasty stuff has been done in the name of tradition.

For example. Many people complain about all the things they have to do for christmas. The cooking and the baking and the decorating, not to mention putting up the tree, sending out cards, and wrapping presents. It is a lot.

One of my classmates (who was not in class this week) was complaining last week about how overwhelmed she was with the holiday activities and all she had to do. This was not unusual. She was usually freaked out over all she had to do. She reminded me of my mother in that she made things way harder than they needed to be. Or rather, she held herself to a standard that then made her lose her mind when she actually had to do the work.


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Studiedly neutral is a reaction

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Yesterday, I was writing about my distaste for Christmas. Well, hatred. Let’s be real. I used to loathe Christmas. It didn’t have much to do with the holiday itself, but with all the heavy expectations that went along with it. Plus the fact that the holiday spirit commercialization started earlier every year, and I was not pleased. I saw my first Christmas commercial before Halloween this year. That is a crime against humanity.

As I mentioned yesterday, once I stopped watching TV and listening to the radio, it was much better. Also, Taiji has helped me maintain my equilibrium when it comes to the holiday season. I no longcer rail against it, but I’m not going to be decorating a tree any time soon, either. Or sipping eggnog. Even if my brother were here for Christmas (he’s taking his family to Taiwan), I would not celebrate.

Here’s the thing. It’s not my holiday. I’m not a Christian, and I don’t like the trappings of the religion. Even if you want to go with a more secular Christmas, I have no warm feelings about the holiday itself.

I can get behind gathering as a family/group of friends/community. I know that for most people it’s important to have a sense of belonging. The problem is that when it’s practically society-mandated as is Christmas, that’s a recipe for disaster. Same with Thanksgiving.

I just recently learrned from my brother that his ex-wife held a grudge for several years because at the first Thanksgiving they hosted together, my mother brought her cranberry salad to the dinner. To elaborate, she said she was going to bring it, so it wasn’t as if she brought it out of the blue.

Here’s the problem. My mother’s cranberry salad is cranberries, whipped cream, orange slices, marshmallows,  raisins, nuts, and I think jello. It’s really tasty, but it’s very sweet. My ex-SIL’s idea of cranberry for Thanksgiving is cranberry and a sauce that has sugar waved over it. She made it for the Thanksgiving after my medical crisis, and it was very tart. Like mouth-puckering tart.

Two different people with two very different ideas of what cranberries for Christmas should be. Neither was wrong–they were just different. However, my ex-SIL held a grudge for several years because that’s what my mother meant by cranberry salad. Apparently, that totally ruined Thanksgiving for my ex-SIL. I asked why she didn’t just quickly make her own when she realized what my mother had brought. My brother said because they didn’t have cranberries in the house.

Which, yeah, I get it. It’s a bummer when you don’t get a dish you were looknig forward to, but it wasn’t as if my mother did it to deliberately antagonize her. Or that my mother’s cranberries were inedible. Or that it was some kind of sign of hatred.


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Bah humbug is a holiday spirit

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When I was in ninth or tenth grade, I wrote an opinion editorial (“op-ed” in the biz) about how Christmas had become so commercialized. This was over thirty-five years ago, and I was such a naive child back then. I thought I had seen the height of consumerism, but I had seen nothing yet.

I loved Christmas as a kid, of course, because I got presents. That was it. No other reason. Just the presents. My brother and I would snoop around to find them before Chrismas. We also found things I’d rather not know existed, but that’s the danger of snooping.

Christmas was oddly disappointing, though, even back then. Well, not oddly. It makes sense when you think about it. When you’re a little kid, a year is such a big chunk of your life. It takes forever to get from one Christmas to another.

Then, Christmas lasted a couple hours an was over for another year. Even if you got everything you wanted for Christmas, there was still the yawning emptiness afterwards because material goods did not fulfill you permanently. This was obvious–now. Not to a little kid who waited all year to get whatever the toy of the year was. To be honest, I didn’t even remember what I got for presents. I knew they were what I asked for or what my mother would think a girl would want (if it was the latter, then it wasn’t what I wanted). I didn’t really remember.

What I did remember was one year, there was nothing in my stocking. I told my  mother about it, and she told me to go back to bed. Fifteen minutes later, she called me to the stocking (and my brother, too, probably) and there were things in it. That was my first inkling that Santa wasn’t real.

Then, I started hating Christmas. There were two reasons for this. One, my fractious relationship with Christianity. I left it when I was twenty and had sex for the first time. I didn’t really believe before that, but I tried so hard. But my mother’s particular brand of hardcore fundie evangelical Christianity never sat well with me–especially the terrible sexism of it all.

When I realized they were lying about sex (that premarital sex was the worst thing you could do and would cast your soul into eternal hell), there was no going back. When someone llies to you that consistantly, persistantly, and without remorse, all the trust was gone.


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Obligatory Holiday Post

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Anyone who knows me at all knows that I’m not a holiday person. At all. For many years, I had a revulsion to most of them for good and not-so-good reasons. Christmas: way too commercialized, long-drawn, and exclusive (in the true sense of the word, not meaning swank or posh). V-Day: made-up holiday making men feel pressured to buy expensive shit for their girlfriends (very heteronormative), make grand gestures, and it’s a recipe for disappointment. Independence Day: it wasn’t.

I could go on and on, but I won’t. A funny thing happened this year, though. I ended up not caring about Christmas in the best way possible. I don’t watch TV, and I have ad-blocker online, so I didn’t have to see the excruciatingly terrible commercials associated with Christmas, which really helped. Yes, it was irritating to hear the music on the radio or in stores, but that was really time-limited, which helped. So, here we are the day before Christmas (Christmas by the time this gets posted), and I don’t even know how I got here. I am surprised at how quickly this year went, but that’s a different post.

I tweeted and posted on my FB wall about how strange it was to go from hating Christmas to not caring about it (in a positive way). I think it’s taiji, but I’m going to attribute most positive changes in my life to taiji. Anyway. Here are my two favorite Christmas songs. First, Vienna Teng singing The Atheist Christmas Carol.

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It’s Beginning to Look a Lot Like–Shut the Fuck Up!

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I hate Christmas, and I have since I was a kid. I found out there was no Santa Claus when I was seven or eight. I got up early Christmas morning to check the stockings, and there was nothing in them. I went to tell my mom, and she told me to go back to bed for an hour or so. I did, then went back to check, and, lo, and behold! There was stuff in my stocking. I put two and two together and came up with four, but I didn’t tell my mom because who doesn’t like presents? That’s not the reason I don’t like Christmas, however. It’s because of all the crass commercialism that surrounds it, covered in the veneer of gooey emotions. I even wrote an editorial about it when I was in junior high school, bemoaning how capitalism had corrupted Christmas. That was over thirty years ago, and it’s only gotten worse since.

Why am I writing about it now, well before Halloween if I hate it so much? Aren’t I just contributing to the problems? No, I’m not. I’m reacting to the fact that I saw two Christmas commercials today during the Vikings game. One was Star Wars-themed and for Duracell batteries, and I can’t tell you what the other one was for because I started freaking out when I saw it. It’s not even fucking Halloween yet, and they’re showing this shit? I have begrudgingly accepted that Christmas lasts all through November and December, but I will not brook it creeping into October as well. I don’t care for holidays in general, but Halloween is the one I like the most. The costumes, the candy, the pagan basis, the turn-off-the-lights-and-pretend-not-to-be-home, it’s great. It deserves its own month as a welcome to autumn, which is my second favorite season. Winter is my first, and I don’t like that it’s overtaken by Christmas.

Here’s the thing. I don’t hate Christmas for itself. I’m not a Christian, but I don’t mind if Christians want to celebrate the birth of Jesus, even if it’s at the wrong time and is grafted over pagan rituals. It’s no skin off my nose. As for the gather with the family and eat a ton of turkey/ham until you pass out tradition, to each his own, I guess. Although, I will say that the theme of forced family togetherness is annoying and potentially alienating for some people. I wrote a post a while back about what to do if you’re not feeling merry around Christmas, and I got a lot of heartfelt responses in the comment section, on Twitter, on Facebook. It’s hard to watch all the cheer and everyone getting hyped for Christmas if you’re not feeling it for one reason or another. Maybe you just lost a loved one or went through a messy divorce. Perhaps you’re estranged from your family and haven’t talked to them in years. Maybe your children don’t answer your calls, and you’re wondering what’s going on. Or you’ve been diagnosed with an incurable disease. There are plenty of reasons you may not be feeling jolly for the holidays and hearing that you should be 24/7 is a guaranteed way to make your mood even sourer. I can attest to that. The more I see people being all holly and jolly for the holidays, the more bitter I become. Grinch gets a bad name, but I can feel his pain. All he wants is to be left alone to live his life in Grinchly peace, but the annoying Whoville pipsqueak can’t shut her damn trap for a hot second.


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