My Christmas has been a merry one. Lots of presents, great food, wine and love, lots of great moments on this family holiday, which we celebrate out of nostalgia and habit of the old us. I can’t help but experience the bites of the sense of guilt, tickling my mind as I hypocritically take advantage of this old Christian and pre-Christian celebration of the winter solstice.
Whether spiritual or traditional, Christmas has always been like the war between Oceania and Eurasia or Eastasia in Orwell’s “1984”. First we hated it – it was the enemy – the western world, then we loved it – it was the “old” Bulgarian tradition. It was family and warmth and home…
I must have been at least ten when my grandparents gave me a present and told me it was for Christmas. It was confusing. I thought you got gifts on New Year’s Day. There was no grandpa Christmas, (Santa Claus), there was only grandpa Newyear’s. All of a sudden, here was this reinstated holiday, now allowed again, which I was supposed to embrace. And I did. I mean, I believed all the crap about the son-of-a-god and lived with it. I still couldn’t quite figure out what to do with the two Santas, and I doubted them both.
The excitement, the waiting, the presents, the disappointment that my dad always fell asleep before 12am, I lived it all. I loved Christmas up until I moved to the US. As soon as I started seeing the commercials on TV, starting in September, as soon as I heard Silent Night in October and as soon as I saw how the shelves in the stores got cleared off of the orange and black Halloween monsters and pumpkins, to be replaced by the green white and red colors of this “holly” day it all started to rot in my mind.
Today my realization of the true meaning of Christmas to society brings a bitter-sweet taste to the holiday, but not to the thirteen course dinner that we cooked.
What does this mean?
It means that the eyes of a thirty-year-old kid have cleared up a bit, so they can see – it’s not about what the holidays mean. It’s about what meaning you breathe into them. The towers are just as high, as we build them. And in this case they are towers of family love and tradition.
So, no matter how stinky the shit – the right frosting will make it sweet for anyone.
Two questions that I’m yet to answer: Which shit deserves a frosting? And how much frosting justifies the fact that you’re eating shit?
3 comments:
hahaha i absolutely loved this! so captivating!
I CAN NOT believe you like halloween better then Christmas!?!?
Hmm...I don't really go crazy for halloween and I do like all the food and presents, so I guess, when you minus out the music and decorations, I likle Christmas. I hate the reason we're celebrating it for, but I kind of like the way. You know what, better yet! I like the way, because it simply defeats the reason :) Most people celebrate it for the shopping and not for the kING of men :)
I mean the way it's celebrated makes most people concentrate on the gifts (why else would you have the so convenient Santa, if not for teaching the kids that they MUST get tons of presents) and forget about WHY they're buying/getting them.
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