festive season

18 Dec 2008

What Would Santa Do?

By Dick Gross

gross_christmas

Dick Gross, atheist of Jewish descent, explains why the Christmas cynics have got it all wrong

We know all the usual critiques. Christmas is an affront to our multiculturalism. Christmas is an irrational religious myth. Christmas is crass. Christmas is commercial.

And on goes the orthodox critical condemnation of this ancient and anachronistic festival. The critique is adopted by many parties along the belief continuum. The religious are affronted by the commercialism and the non-Christians are confronted by the mainstreaming of a religious culture different and often opposed to their own. The unbelievers once again must cope with another irrational religious mythology. Surely everyone's a loser?

And yet I feel that here in Australia we can celebrate this odd admixture of cultures — a confluence of the European winter fire festival, a transcendent Christian faith in the son of God, the secular worship of the God of sun, and an annual end-of-cycle time to recover and reflect. Let me explain.

Humans are herd animals. We gather in communal groups and this underpins our social cohesion. Part of our group behaviour is the ritual. Ritual is the non-verbal communication in which groups engage. Such non-verbal rituals may include song, symbols, food and dress. The army provides many visible examples of highly ritualised behaviour: its rituals of saluting, uniforms and marching bring the group together, distinguish the army from other groups and reinforce the hierarchy within the group.

The ritual is thus at the core of the army as a group. In less obvious ways, ritual is at the centre of every human experience when we gather as a group. Thus ritual is important and not to be mocked or ignored. To do so undermines our social cohesiveness. Rituals are what we share as humans and notwithstanding the cynicism about ritual — particularly Christmas ritual — such rites are what we treasure.

Christmas can thus be understood as a suite of cultural rituals that we employ to express ourselves as a group. And for each sub-group within the Australian society, Christmas has its own set of rituals that appeal to both the religious and the secular. It has, in a perverse Darwinian fashion, evolved to suit almost everyone.

Given the multiple origins of the modern celebration of Christmas, this evolution makes sense. It started as a secular festival that celebrated the Yuletime pageant of candle light in the European winter. It was then grafted by the Romans onto the Christian celebration of the birth of Jesus. And along the way, the process of secularisation has added the much maligned commercial aspect.

There is another aspect of the Aussie Christmas that is seldom acknowledged. The combination of Christmas, summer and New Year transforms this period into a ritual of reflection and rest at the end of the annual cycle of life. Christmas for kids is a celebration of transition from one grade to the next. Thus, the combined New Year/Christmas extravaganza is habituated into the school-age rite of passage.

A rite of passage is a ritual that celebrates change and transition like baptism (birth), marriage (the commencement of the traditional model of procreation) and the funeral (death). Christmas is not generally thought of as a rite of passage, but in Australia it has this feature merely because it coincides with, and thereby becomes intimately associated with, annual change and renewal.

So the defence of Christmas goes like this. On a national level, it brings all of us together by means of an amalgam of religious and secular symbols that we can all enjoy regardless of belief. It is sufficiently secular to appeal to the non-Christians and it is sufficiently Christian to provide spiritual inspiration for believers.

The specific rituals of hymns, Carols by Candlelight, inappropriate food consumption, Santa and fake snow are widely practiced and capable of being enjoyed by all. Rituals need repetition and rehearsal to gain traction. We get that repetition in spades at Christmas. And the constant repetition over the years can form a binding set of rites for many.

On a micro level, each group adapts. The secular have many of the same rituals as believers because we all know that Christmas has been so thoroughly desacralised and commercialised that it is now palatable to the most hardcore atheist. Look at the very symbols of Christmas: Santa (a merged entity of the Turkish Saint Nicholas and the English rural wood spirit Father Christmas), Christmas lights and decorations — none of which have any nexus to Baby Jesus. The Nativity can, if you wish for a God-free event, be discarded altogether. Christ can be well and truly taken out of Christmas if you so wish. But of course, if you want to celebrate the birth of Jesus, then that is simple too.

And I know that many Jews simply do on Christmas what every Christian does — have a meal with the family. There's nothing else to do. I imagine that other non-Christian groups do much the same thing.

So I believe that there is much curmudgeonly criticism of Christmas. This criticism fails to take into account how well modern Australians have adapted this strange mixture of winter and Christian ritual into our secular summer context. It is still a ritual that can unite us on a national and family level. And in a world where shared community ritual is abating, where groups as diverse as footy clubs and political parties struggle for members, we need every communal ritual we can grab to enhance our social cohesiveness.

Me? Well apart from airing our family pathologies at our Christmas meal, I will sing along to Carols by Candlelight and probably go to Midnight Mass at St Carthage's Church. Strange for a secular Jew you might think but actually quite consistent with the way modern, tolerant Australia has adapted to this festival that has never ceased to change to meet the changed circumstances of the societies where Christmas exists. We all can celebrate without guilt. I do.

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rowena 18/12/08 2:21PM

Well done, Dick - something positive in a smorgasbord of gloom. Happy Santafest.

BPobjie 20/12/08 6:38AM

Personally, I’ve been beset by people telling me I have no right to celebrate Christmas unless I’m a Christian, a directive I festively ignore.

Stephen Pickells 20/12/08 9:28AM

What a great article. I’ve never understood why so many people resent the notion of Christmas, simply because it contains the word "Christ". They never seem to have the same problem with "Hallow" in Halloween or "Saint" in St Valentine’s Day, two other pagan festivals which were comandeered first by the church and then big business. It should be mentioned that the modern Santa is a merging not only of St Nicholas and Father Christmas, but also an advertising campaign for Coca Cola.

kristone 20/12/08 10:57AM

AMEN.

denise 20/12/08 4:20PM

I agree with your attitude Dick, Xmas is a time for the masses to celebrate their pagan origins, while somehow also trying to associate those origins with the birth of the Judaeo/Christian Messiah.
However, I don’t agree with your premise that we are herd animals. Instead I believe we are far more like pack animals and hence we tend to bond best with dogs.
And you failed to mention one of the most important aspects of the celebration of the now mostly pagan festval of Xmas, the Xmas Tree. Because the origins of Xmas as a festival of mass worship, begins with the worship of the Xmas tree itself. The evergreen ones in particular, the trees that remained green throughout the cold, dark Winter months, especially at the Winter Solstice when the sun was at its most distant - the other main reason behind celebrations at this time of the year - were considered sacred.
And the very thought of ice and snow is enough to cool you down during the hot Summer months in Australia, so of course this adds extra appeal to the idea of pretending we are in the cold of a Northern Hemisphere celebrating Xmas.
Hopefully we’ll all return to our pagan origins eventually and begin to put the right values on what we have, especially in terms of life and the sustainable future for the regeneration of new life for all lifeforms on this continent.
We should be celebrating the Summer Solstice, our Light and our endless supply of Solar energy (of which sadly is mostly going to waste) our Seas and Waterways, full of seafood and our Summer tropical fruits. These are the aspects of life in Australia that should be celebrated with vigour and in true voice with the highest respect for Nature and the Cosmos.
And that which we are yet to gasp the truth of, especially in terms of the true meaning of the origins of life and God, should be openly discussed and debated as a part of this Saturnalia-like, annual religious celebration of everything Australian and pagan!
Because afterall when you look at the history of Xmas, Santa Claus is just a fat, old fireman coming down the chimney (ringing his bell and singing Hose! Hose! Hose!) to seal a (fire insurance) deal, represented by the milk and cookies that must be left out for him in order for your house to be covered!
In fact his original name was Saturnalia, eventually shortened to Santa Claus when the ‘chimney entrance claus’ was added to the original fire insurance policy.

revilo 21/12/08 3:01PM

Hose hose hose Mary Xmas.
Denise I am worried.
I am worried, firemen coming down your chimney! really?

With all its tackyness, I love Xmas time too.
It usually corresponds with the 8 days of Chanukah, this year Xmas eve is third candle lighting night.

I am surprised that any one can derive a sense of pride or satisfaction in regard to the lapsing of their faith.

When speaking of being of jewish descent, please don’t tar us all with the same brush.
Some (hopefully most) of us of the Hebrew faith are of Jewish "ascent"

Yes Jesus was one of us, no he "did’nt come to change the Law, but to fulfill it" Matthew, somewhere or other.

Please, all this stuff got us to where we are today.
And if it is just herd or pack mentality applied to surviving in an indifferent world at best, or downright hostile at worst, then survive is what we will do.
So whether it is moo moo moo or ruff ruff ruff,
Merry Merry and happy happy to one and all: mothers fathers sisters and brothers. Oli

Jonah Bones 23/12/08 11:18AM

I use the festive season to close out the year , I tend to tasks and matters that are either undone or need to wear a fresh face for the new year.
As for growing up within a Catholic tradition found these great homilies a few years back :
http://www.gnosis.org/ecclesia/homilies.htm

Rockjaw 30/12/08 1:17PM

"When speaking of being of jewish descent, please don’t tar us all with the same brush"

Well said Oli

Rogerio 31/12/08 4:39AM

As humanity replaces god with science as a source and foundation for our moral guidance so will we see more of the following:-

http://www.mail-archive.com/community_garden@list.communitygarden.org/ms…

Enjoy what little we have left of nature, we may be the last generation to experience it in it’s original form.

Rogerio 31/12/08 2:17PM

sorry about the dead link - can;t figure what went wrong.

Here is an alternative:-

http://abutamam.blogspot.com/2005/01/for-record-us-declares-iraqis-can-n…

ehandsley 01/01/09 10:11PM

Thanks, Dick, for a really thought-provoking article. You’re quite right that people need ritual. The problem with Christmas is that rituals need to have a meaning. Otherwise they are not rituals, they are just habits. One way to lose meaning is to fragment the meaning, and that is what has happened with Christmas.

You have very ably demonstrated that Christmas in Australia means 3 different things: 1. the celebration of the birth of Jesus Christ; 2. the pagan mid-winter festival; 3. the end of the calendar AND the academic year – and you’re quite right to point out that this is the major difference between us and our northern cousins. It’s not the weather at this time of year, it’s where you are in the annual cycle that changes the whole feeling of the festival.

To bring back the meaning I suggest a fragmentation of the festival along the following lines:

1. Christian believers celebrate the birth of Jesus Christ whenever they want, however they want. The only proviso is that they not hijack any ancient pagan festivals – so no trees, no tinsel, no euphemisms eg ‘Happy Holidays’. Just Christians being loud and proud about their Saviour.

2. the general populace celebrates mid-winter at mid-winter, including conifers with sparkly decorations to pep us all up and a large rich meal shared with nearest and dearest. The emphasis would be on community, and while we’re looking for morale-lifting magic, this would also be an appropriate time for any mythical gift-distributors to visit children. Come the republic we can scrap the June long weekend marking the birthday of George V, and replace it with one at the winter solstice to facilitate all this. Either that or line it up with the end of term 2 in your state.

3. the time of the summer solstice becomes one for celebrating and reflecting on the year, a time for fun and parties and the showering of gifts on family members, by family members, including and especially by parents on children who have done well in their studies. Special attention to be given to anybody who is graduating, in anything. But note: no credit for generosity to be given to any mythical characters, jolly or otherwise. In the short term, while we all adjust to the changes, said gifts can be left under a beach umbrella or similar pending distribution. And please, no ham or turkey. Can we finally embrace seafood as the official gastronomic choice for an Australian summer? Or if you insist we can enlist Maggie Beer to create some cold dishes especially for the occasion.

Now the question is: whom to approach to get all this happening? Not the government, presumably … do you think the various chambers of commerce would come at a doubling up of the gift-giving season? I reckon it might just catch on.