Woke up early.
Checked my phone. Post a comment on a blog.
Realize it’s Christmas!
Wrote a tiny poem.
I don’t
believe
in Baby
Jesus
no more
so I
Christmas
all the
Harder
I grew up conservative Christian. And Asian-American. My parents left Hong Kong and Taiwan and met here in the States. With the clarity of immigrants, they sensed that Christmas was a frivolous, secular holiday.
When my sister and I were teens, they gave in. We started exchanging small gifts. My mom added small decorations around to the house but never bothered with a tree.
We still drove down to LA from the Bay Area on Christmas because traffic was lighter. We’d eat at my grandparent’s favorite dim sum place in Monterey Park. (My aunt suspected that they liked that spot because the tea was brewed extra strong.)
We didn’t buck the holiday, but we never gave it religious significance. For a real Christian, every day is Christmas and Easter. Picking out holy-days still feels kind of pagan.
I drifted away when I grew up. It didn’t do much for me emotionally, and I finally bailed when George W. Bush co-opted the religious establishment to support his optional war. Even so, I always planned on taking my kids to church on Christmas, so they could feel the religious origins of this season.
That notion died with the election of the Trump. My wife (never religious) was so disgusted with white evangelicals that she didn’t want our kids anywhere near such cruel hypocrites nor be tempted by the pomp and circumstance of their celebration.
Instead, every year I put up a plastic tree from Ikea on Thanksgiving, buy a few toys, wrap the last six months of library book sale finds in old architectural printouts, watch a Christmas movie, and clean everything up on New Year’s Day.
Last year ago, I told my daughter the myth of Jesus. It blew her mind. I might as well have grown a third head (or narrated the nsfw story of Lot and his daughters).
An all-powerful deity came down to this filthy planet to be born in horse shit, grow up as a carpenter, start a small cult as a wandering sage, only to be executed in excruciating fashion. All to pay the blood penalty for the evil committed by his own shithead creatures.
So here I am, suddenly marveling at the magic of Christmas. Say what you will about the religion, that’s an awesome story.