Christmas And The River

I told him I wasn’t going to celebrate Christmas, specifically that I wasn’t going to have a Christmas tree in the house. He asked why, my answer was that I was in mourning and I wasn’t celebrating anything for one year.  Besides I said I’m an atheist why would I celebrate the birth of a person I don’t believe in. I told him Christmas is very much commercialized and no one is celebrating for the true meaning and people don’t have Christian values anymore. I know I was going to be asked the same questions from other people and I usually try to be ready for questions from people who may think it unusual for not wanting to celebrate Christmas, a holiday that half the world is probably celebrating in December. 

So I got on my favorite answer guru Google and asked the burning questions I wanted answers for.  I wanted to know why and when Christmas was celebrated, where did it start, who invented Santa cause, who thought of the Christmas tree and the stockings hung by the chimney?  Not that anyone remembers why December 25 is celebrated but most people think that is the day Jesus was borne. Not so, even religious scholars don’t know exactly when he was born. Maybe in March? It was mentioned somewhere, so it was decided that December 25 is a good day because it coincided with an important pagan holiday and the newly converted Christians wouldn’t complain too much.  But many Christians around the world celebrate Epiphany on January 6 and it’s also called Three Kings Day and the day of Jesus’ baptism. 

The Man Behind the Story of Father Christmas/Santa Claus. St. Nicholas was a Bishop who lived in the fourth century in a place called Myra in Asia Minor (now called Turkey). He was a very rich man because his parents died when he was young and left him a lot of money. He is said to bring gifts to the homes of well-behaved ("good" or "nice") children on Christmas Eve. This European Santa or Father Winter used to be a tall and slender fella but then at the beginning of the 1930s, as the growing Coca-Cola company was looking for ways to increase sales of their product during winter they turned to a talented commercial illustrator named Haddon Sundblom, who created a series of memorable drawings that associated the figure of a larger than life, red-and-white garbed Santa Claus with Coca-Cola and the slogan “The Pause That Refreshes”.

(Google)

Germany is credited with starting the Christmas tree tradition as we now know it in the 16th century when devout Christians brought decorated trees into their homes. Some built Christmas pyramids of wood and decorated them with evergreens and candles if wood was scarce. (History)

What does Christmas tree symbolize? In 2004, Pope John Paul called the Christmas tree a symbol of Christ. This very ancient custom, he said, exalts the value of life, as in winter what is evergreen becomes a sign of undying life, and it reminds Christians of the "tree of life" of Genesis 2:9, an image of Christ, the supreme gift of God to humanity.

Christmas tree - Wikipedia

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christmas_tree

One of the main reasons we have the custom of giving and receiving presents at Christmas, is to remind us of the presents given to Jesus by the Wise Men: Frankincense, Gold and Myrrh. whychristmas.com 

As you can see Christmas is a mashup of religion, folklore and tradition handed down from generation to generation and it has become what it is today. A season of spending large amounts of money to have a Christmas tree, to have decorations, to buy gifts not only for  our nice children but for the whole extended family, the kid's teachers, the mailman, the pool man, the gardener and possibly your doctor. I get a headache just thinking about it.   Christmas season that starts right after Thanksgiving is the best money making holiday for retail business owners.  

I did celebrate and enjoyed Christmas when I was a child living with my parents, but I remember it as a time of family gatherings, good food, music and dance and yes one toy for each child. As an adult and when my children were little I tried to have a proper Christmas like everyone else around me. Whenever money was plentiful even though it would be hectic but I didn’t feel much stress, but in tougher times trying to have a proper holiday with all the trimmings was stressful and panic inducing. 

Now when I see my grandchildren delight in everything that Christmas brings them I am very happy.  They love to have a Christmas tree, they love getting gifts from Santa and their parents and grandparents so seeing their happiness and excitement gives me immense pleasure. 

He thought for some time and then he said "Just enjoy the season for what it is and don't overanalyze it, to enjoy the river you don’t need to know where it originated from and where it may end up just look at it and enjoy the scenery".

So I’m going to do just that and enjoy Christmas regardless of all the above mentioned.

Merry Christmas everyone I hope Santa brings you everything you asked.

Chang & Tradition (Written July 2011)

     If I've learned one thing in my life is that change happens whether we like it or not. People change, seasons change, places change, laws change, every thing changes. Even mountains and oceans change, everything that exits changes. Another thing I've learned is that most people don't like change and the older they get they dislike change even more. I don't know why this is but the simple explanation would be that people are creatures of habit. Consistency is easy, comfortable and un-complicated. That's the reason we don't change our car insurance even if we know it's expensive, that's why people don't refinance their high interest rate mortgage loans, it's the reason people use the same incompetent accountant, lawyer or mechanic year after year. 

     In my place of work I hear this question almost every day. Customers ask "why do people change here so much?" I have worked in the same place for more than a year and so have a lot of other co-workers. But as soon as we get one new person we are asked that question. I don't know why it's so hard to understand that people change jobs. Some get fired, some get promoted, some quit and others retire. What is so complicated or unusual about this that perplexes people? It's because they don't like change. They want to see the same people every time they come in, doing the same job, standing in the same spot. 

     Who would still want cars with maximum speed of 45 miles per hour? Who doesn't like the convenience of cell phones, or the miracle of the Internet? Who hasn't benefited from all the great changes in the medical field and the amazing verity of life saving procedures? Just imagine if we didn't have all the modern technological discoveries that happened in the last 50 years that have greatly improved our quality of life. My mom used to comment all the time that our life was so much easier compared to hers in respect to the conveniences of domestic life, from shopping to cooking and cleaning to child rearing.  

     With all this said there is still a place for traditions and why we cherish them. In my opinion family traditions are created when we do something together as a family that is fun and enjoyable and it creates found memories. There is this family tradition that every summer when some of us go, or have gone to Armenian, we go to my sister's "dacha", Russian word for villa or summer house in English, and when it's time to go back to the city, we take a group picture sitting on the same sofa. Every year some of the people in the picture change depending on whoever happens to be visiting Armenia that year. There is always the home owners and maybe an odd person, a guest or a friend but the picture is always taken from the same angle on the same sofa. One year the sofa broke, I guess because we all had gained a few pounds from eating too much kabob. We laughed so much that some of us peed in our pants and that made us laugh even more.                        Those are precious memories and they are unforgettable and priceless.

     I like the tradition of having Thanksgiving dinner in my house every year. I think I will continue this tradition for as long as I can cook, maybe until I'm eighty. 
    We have Armenian Christmas at another one of my sisters house and we haven't missed it for 34 years. Her youngest son was born that night 34 years ago and that makes this tradition doubly fun. No matter where we are we always end up in her house on that night. 
     Another of my my sisters (I have seven of them lucky me) lives by a high school and every 4th of July they have fire works at nine o'clock. She cooks hamburgers, hot dogs and barbecue chicken and we always have plenty of beer. Each year the family grows bigger thanks to my nieces and nephews and now my son who has a little girl. The kids run around in the backyard, climb trees and walls, and eat lots of food. The grownups talk about life, work, blood pressure and our weight problems and everything else in between. We all have a wonderful time and go home tired and happy.  

     

I juts want our kids to continue our family traditions because that is the one thing that will bind us to each other. In this cold and ever changing world all we have that is genuine is family love. You can't buy it, rent it or borrow it. Let's leave something behind for our kids besides our national debt. Let's leave them our legacy of good old fashioned family traditions. After all blood is thicker than water.   

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Reminiscence

I don't know why but I can't forget that Christmas long ago when I was 14 years old. We still lived in my home town Arak in Iran. My three older sisters were already married and gone away. One of them was visiting us that Christmas and had brought two friends along. They were a couple, an Armenian man and his American wife. My sisters and I were doing what we did every holiday night. We had lots of great food, homemade wine and were singing old Armenian songs all night long. The Armenian man had become very emotional from our songs. The songs we used to sing were mostly about love of  our homeland Armenia, mothers love, separation from family and such. Come to think of it they were all tear-jerkers. No wonder the fellow was getting teary eyed. I also became very emotional just seeing him so effected by our patriotism and unbridled nationalism. I drank a lot of wine and sang my heart out. I don't remember what I was doing but my family got worried about me and called a doctor. He gave me a shot and told my parents to let me sleep it off. The next day my parents didn't say anything to me, but my sister kept asking me why I had gotten so drunk. It was hard to explain, it still is. I think I was feeling sorry for that man because he never had a large family. He never was in an Armenian community. He had never heard such beautiful songs of yearning and love. He had married an American, could never be or raise his kids as pure Armenians like us. I could see in his tearful eyes the lamentation and his lost identity. To me that was tragic. I guess that is why I drank too much because I didn't know how to handle the knowledge of that great sorrow.