Hopeful Thinking - Saturday, December 9, 2017 - Notice One Another This Holiday

I have to make an admission. It’s actually a bit difficult to say. I regularly feel judged whenever I even hint at it. But the truth will set me free, I suppose. Here it is: I’m not in love with the holidays.

I don’t like the way they often make me feel. Unsettled. Expectant on one hand and dreading on the other. The whole gift exchange thing. I’m given the impression that the only way I’ll ever truly enjoy the holidays is by adhering to the perfect equation of organizational skills + time + money = holiday joy. I often have at least one of them, sometimes even two. But virtually never all three.

I greatly admire people who seem to have it all together at the holidays. I have an aunt who just excels at it. You’d think there were secretly four of her. The best part is she never seems harried and there’s always time for conversation and hugs while cooking. Her brain functions on seven levels at once. Anyone who’s cooked around me knows I need quiet in the kitchen to function. Not very holiday-like.

The whole argument about merry Christmas vs. happy holidays makes me shudder. I question myself every single time I utter either one. I used to really, really like saying merry Christmas without a single religious thought in my head. I started saying it the first week of December and was always disappointed come December 26th that it was time to go back to just saying the boring old hello again.

Now I evaluate whether or not I think the person I’m giving a holiday greeting to is Christian. I adjust accordingly. At the holidays in public places I just say hello to someone I think might be Muslim—which of course I can’t possibly know but I’m nonetheless now required by the times to make an on-the-spot religious profiling to determine the appropriate greeting. Muslims don’t have a particular holiday that conveniently falls near the end of December like the Jewish tradition. Hanukkah is a beautiful holiday. It begins this week, in fact. But it’s not the big one. Christians make Hanukkah more prominent than it is for their own sake. We can be very pushy.

In nearly every way, however, this happy holidays discussion is actually a good thing. Despite the challenges it presents to our particular generation of human society, those coming after us will have it easier. We are the ones doing the heavy lifting of social change by changing our words. But we should be proud of how hard we are working to build diversity into our human language. We should absolutely be aware of the diversity that our unique melting pot model in the United States has created. We should rejoice for it. Saying happy holidays is not the end of the world. Especially when we remember that it is the most welcoming, loving and inclusive statement to make in a culture we have deliberately chosen to create this way.

But this, too, is merely part of the cloud that hangs over the holiday season. Only one of the stars in its vast constellation of complicated family feelings, seasonal depression from the loss of sunlight, the political landscape, wars and disease all around us. Joy to the world, please. It needs it. Peace on earth, we beseech you.

There is only one thing we can do.

Notice one another. Recognize how people feel. Don’t make them feel like failures just because they aren’t in the spirit. Be curious about where people are spending their holidays. Invite strangers. Be considerate and generous. Be kind.

In Islam, their month of kindness is Ramadan. That is their annual time to observe the birth of their faith. It is much like Christian Advent or the Jewish Ten Days of Awe. Ramadan is the cycle of the moon during which they are to notice one another. Exhibit special generosity. Invite strangers. Give to charity. Remember the teachings and the teacher.

The winter is upon us. Gather closely and comfort one another. Remember how magnificent we are beyond this flawed human experience. Bring some of that light into the world now. We need a little. Right this very minute.