Monday, December 1, 2008

The most wonderful time of the year in America OR Whose holiday is it anyway?

I think I learned about Christmas for the first time at around the time most American kids realize they were living a lie sold and repackaged every year by their very own parents in the form of a morbidly obese man, holding a coke and encouraging materialism. In Hebrew, Christmas' literal translation is the 'holiday of the birth'. Of whom? No way to know - you had to go to pre-Internet Wikipedia. Or the encyclopedia.

It's funny to have grown up in a country where every possible person I knew growing up was Jewish, and yet every year the only TV channel we had back then would show the mass at Christmas to the entire world. Jesus Of Nazareth, I was told his name was. But you see, Nazareth was like a quick drive from I lived. Jesus probably walked by my house when he wanted to get to the Mediterranean beach. I mean - he probably got sick of the Kineret / Sea of Galilee (by the way - what is that about?) - all those tourists coming to see him was probably too much, and let's face it - it can get real hot in Tiberius and he could never actually splash in the water, with all the walking all over it and all. Nice thing for the spectators, but if it was me - I would pick another skill that involves cooling my body in the 110 degree humid heat, like perhaps breathing under water.

So I'd like to think that Jesus took walks from Nazereth when he wanted to get some peace, quiet and to cool off, and maybe he stopped just where I used to play as a kid and rest, for a snack of olives or something.

But anyway... when I learned about Christmas, it had nothing to do with Jesus. My parents came back from a trip to Boston just around Christmas, and the pictures were something else - the snow, the lights, the decorations. It all looked so inviting and even warm within what even the picture showed was so cold. No holiday I knew was like that.

So ever since, I always wanted to experience Christmas in America. And it took some time. I visited first in 1990, but that was the summer. Then again in 1996, and that one I got to experience Christmas - but in southern Texas. I'll tell you - Armadillos and Christmas don't really fit, I don't care what those country songs say.

But then I got to experience it as an actual resident in Boston - and that was sort of what I had in mind. Freezing cold, lights, the works. And that was in the post-politically correct era and in liberal Massachusetts, so Christmas was replaced by 'the holidays', which is true to this day in hippie California as well. I guess it makes me feel a bit more inside it all, but as always with Americans - it's just what is said - everyone knows it's about Christmas, but in the P.C. way, they try to make everyone feel good - and it works - I'm a cheap date! So every Television event, every community event, they would start with 'Merry Christmas', and so on and so forth until they cover the holidays of the little known religion of Jediism, (
http://www.jedichurch.org/) (yes, it's people who declare their religion as of the Jedi, worshipping 'the force' based on the teachings of Star Wars. Yes. Jediism. That's right - there are 500,000 people in the U.S., UK, New Zealand and others who identify with this religion and church. Still makes more sense than scientology though…)


So this causes the endings of shows and events to take around 20-30 minutes where every holiday in the tri-continent area is being covered where the host tries to run through 'Merry Christmas, Happy Hannukkah, Crazy Kwanzaa, easy
feast day of Anastasia of Sirmium, good paganic yule, and a peaceful Constitution Day in China ..." - (wait, go back, I can't write that fast, is this going to be on the test?)

During this time, every mall, radio station and lobby, christmas music is being played in the background. One of the most popular is of course 'It's the most wonderful time of the year' that was written in 1963 by Andy Williams, who apparently either was tone-deaf to the 60s movement, or had a subliminal message. Used to like this song, but this is sort of the process I went though reading through it:


It's the most wonderful time of the year (indeed, it is!)
With the kids jingle belling and everyone telling you "Be of good cheer" '(they don't really but the idea is nice...)
It's the most wonderful time of the year (got it)

It's the hap-happiest season of all (happy times, got it)
With those holiday greetings and gay happy meetings (yes, greetings... wait, what was that second part again?)
When friends come to call it's the hap-happiest season of all (why would he say gay AND happy, isn't that redundant?)



There'll be parties for hosting Marshmallows for toasting (so there's got to be a reason for that)
And caroling out in the snow there'll be scary ghost stories (scary ghost stories? is this halloween now?)
And tales of the glories of Christmases long, long ago (back when in Christmas you used to scare kids with ghost stories and there were no gay people?)




There'll be much mistltoeing and hearts will be glowing (can't go past that now...)
When love ones are near (hmmm...)
It's the most wonderful time of the year (yes, while some of us seem to be confused...)


How do I fit in all this? I don't really. I play the role - it took a few years after I came to the U.S., but then I started buying some things for people. I even try to send those cards everyone buys made by the multinational corporation that knew how to capsulate the exact unique relationships I have with others. Oh, Hallmark - how do you do it? You know me so well...

But I'll admit it - after all the sarcasm, and looking at some of those crazy rituals - I really do love this season. There's always much vacation from work - hey, that's worth it just for that. There are light decorations in streets and on houses that are simply beautiful (and are really nicer to look at than the next house's foreclosure sign). And going through Hannukah now with Lia, who is astonished by those lights outside, and by the candles inside is what life is all about. Here in Los Angeles, it doesn't have the snowy Christmas I know from the Boston pictures or the movies. But it's a bit colder. It's lame, it's cheesy, it's materialistic and it's all cliche, but it's also beautiful, grandeur, and heart-warming. Come to think of it - it's America-concentrate.

So everyone: It's most wondeful time...
The most wonderful time (those in the back)
The most wonderful time, of the year!