Christmas is a tough time for me because underneath the bullshitting and somewhat crusty exterior I'm an idealist and a person with small but fairly solid Christian faith and frankly I grow tired of the filth and materialism that we throw at ourselves each year at Christmas. Easter is easy for me; Christmas is not. The holiday is celebrating a historical man (and God if you believe that way) whose primary message was "I sacrificed for you, you sacrifice for me, and for each other." Even if you don't buy the whole message of faith, the philosophical suggestion of subordinating ourselves to the service of others is a compelling one. It's a hard task, frankly, if you think about it. It challenges us to improve ourselves, to do a lot better by other folks.
That message isn't about stinking Lexus 305s. So the annual "Make this a December to Remember" ad campaign that Lexus rolled out again this year makes my nose turn upwards. The ads are pretty clear - if you don't live in a gazillion square foot house with a white marble livingroom that you can literally roll an SUV into, and if you don't give $57,000 sedans (base price... bet your bippy the one in the ad is more like $70,000) as gifts for Christmas, then you just don't love your wife/husband/self very much and you're probably a loser.
Lexus - aka Toyota if you're keeping score at home - can kiss my butt. Toyota is the same company that brags up their reputation for reliability, yet sells a range of cars with an inherently defective lubrication system that has portals too small to transport oil. If you do a lot of stop & go driving, they clog up with the moisture from condensation (hot engine / cold engine / repeat) and the mainshaft bearing blows, and you need a new engine that they are happy to sell you for only $4500 or so. If you ask how this happened, the standard dealer response is to accuse you of never having changed the oil. They do this knowing full well the company lost a class action suit relating to the motors they sold from '96 to '2002, and that the engine remained substantially unchanged thereafter, just the cutoff date for the suit was a large range of motors sold prior to 2002. I know several people who have had this exact same experience with Toyota; I happen to be one of them. By virtue of owning a 2003 Camry (rather than a 2002, covered by the lawsuit) I got the short end of the stick and got the runaround from the dealer, who said (falsely) that I must have not changed the oil, and have run the car around without oil for quite some time... this is the same accusations some of my friends have received.
At any rate, this is the company that's lecturing you on what Christmas means. According to their marketing whizzes - people who make $5 million per year to sell you shit you don't need - you aren't much of a husband/wife/person if you're not rolling a >$60k car into your garage / livingroom / semicircular driveway of your $2.2 million house. They are selling you a great big fat lie, and based on the people I see driving Lexuses - many of them anyhow - they are selling it to people who can't afford to buy the lie, who would be better off stopping at CarMax on the way home and seeing if they could finance $15,000 worth of truth.
I raise this not to single out Toyota in particular, but to single out our stupid urge to try to heal our inner aches with a balm made out of money. Ultimately, money is only a topical cream and it does not heal what ails us. The healing has to come from faith, or at least from discovering a higher virtue than the indulgence of our own whims. It comes from giving to others. It comes from putting ourselves in perspective, and reminding ourselves that we are part of a team, our part in life is to work hard, to give generously of ourselves to others, and when we do spoil ourselves, to do it by treating ourselves nicely, not by trying to make ourselves feel good through cheap and materialistic shortcuts.
You know what makes me feel good? Accomplishment. Making others smile and sharing in their happiness. Doing a little kindness for somebody who needs one. Making the right choices when faced with tough questions.
That's about it. Everything else just gives me a passing chuckle.
Now it may sound like I'm down on Christmas. I am not. I'm down on the bullshit that we tend to drown ourselves in, the way we choose the wrong, materialistic path, and then get all depressed when Christmas just doesn't measure up.
The only way it fails to measure up, is if we're applying the wrong measuring stick.
I get down every year at Christmas. Always happens that this stuff sneaks up on me and makes me a little depressed. So I treat it a couple ways.
First, I make sure to clear the decks and have plenty of quiet time just hanging out with the people I love. I do a lot of the cooking and some of the caretaking if needed, and just try to be there and supportive and engaged. I draw strength from others sometimes, but only when I slow down to do so. The great things about family and friends is that they can carry you through rough times, if you let them.
Second, I try to give other people nice gifts, and to not worry about what I get. I remind myself of how much I have - not just material things - to be thankful for. I truly don't need anything more - just being remembered and thought of really is enough to get on Christmas Day.
Third, I make a point of going to church to be reminded of the reason we celebrate the day. Faith is a weird thing for me because I can't square all the details logically with each other sometimes, so I try to take away the bigger messages, the ones that seem aimed at helping me square away my life, and I don't sweat the smaller stuff. I think the challenge of faith isn't to find proof of God or to believe everything that you're told, but to follow the rules in the main part (which usually have an intrinsic purpose to them that is helpful) and to not let the little things turn into obstacles to absorbing the larger lesson. See, that's the challenge to it: believe because it's hard to do so and it challenges you to do some hard things, not because it's easy.
Anyhow, that's what works for me through the holidays. When I stick to the recipe I come through happier and stronger than I was before the holidays.
Oh yeah, and this year I'm trying to ride the mountain bike a lot, even in bitter cold and snow. That helps beyond measure.
So do any of you sometimes have trouble dealing with the holidays? If so, how do you cope?
13 comments:
Sorry to lighten the mood, but my normally stalwart self control seems to crumble at the at site of a holiday party.
I need a htfu sermon your unholyness. How do you cope with the food?
I don't love my wife very much. No circular driveway, no marble ballroom, no Lexus (sorry to spoil the surprise if she reads this).
Plus with the notion of how f'd up your family financial planning must be if you go out and commit to financing a massively overpriced depreciating "asset" without much discussion and slapping of each other in the face to wake up to how stupid you are being.
Etiberius - enjoy a few days of pigging out, then feel guilty about it and work a little harder and eat a little less when it's over.
Sir,
I found your blog a few weeks ago. Can't remember from where it was linked, maybe Pez Cycling News? Anyway, love the writing, and the blues links were amazing.
As for Christmas, having been raised Catholic, I'm a bit like you. Take away the larger lessons. As for the spirit of it, I just look into the eyes of my sons (6 & 7). Sure, they love the toys, but the innocence and excitement I see in their eyes is worth it.
As for what I want? Only a few things in life really matter to me. Raising my boys right and saving for their education. Having a great marriage. Doing my best at the office. And, riding as much as possible.
Merry Christmas,
-john
damn it Jim, I was hoping you'd get me a lexus this year!
I have similar feelings for non religious reasons. I focus on the things I enjoy at the holiday, cards, giving, seeing friends and family... My wife and I have some small traditions, and honoring them is kinda cool too.
best to you and yours.
respect
fm
Can I get an AMEN?!?
At my office I always have a conundrum around the holidays. It tends to be more stressful financially because this is our least-busy time of year (I am an optometrist) but also is a time where I need to spend more money. I refuse to put any Christmas gifts on plastic.
People keep searching for the thing that will fill that void within them, and think that pouring money and Lexuses (Lexi?)and whatnot into it will fill it up...it won't. Ever. In my faith, Christ is the only thing big enough. For whatever you believe, it is always something bigger than yourself.
And riding helps.
The only thing worse than the Lexus ads are the Acura ads that try to convince you that buying an Acura is a good way to save money at the holidays. WTF?
Amen to the sentiment that we need to get outside ourselves and our selfish interests, regardless of our belief system.
@ etiberius - how do I handle the food at Christmas parties? Seriously? Um, I avoid the paper plates. They crumble when you heap 'em high, particularly with juicy goodness. I recommend you stick to the plastic plates.
Seriously? Don't go totaly nuts, hydrate before & during (make every other drink a water, you eat less when hydrated), ride or get some other form of exercise for an hour a day, and don't worry about it. The problem isn't putting on 5-10 pounds. The problem is putting on 5-10 pounds, and not doing shit for exercise, so that you go into January fat and in bad shape, and a little ice storm or difficulty at work will knock you off your training plan. Pretty soon it's 1 Feb, you've put on 12-15, and haven't ridden in 6 weeks... so I guess the answer is "do something other than what I do most years."
@ Dave - but you tell that to kids nowadays, and they don't believe you.
@ JJ - glad you like it. I'm with you on your program.
@ FatMarc - yeah, sorry about the Lexus. You can make this a December To Remember by remembering that this was the December that ol' Jimbo said "fuck no I ain't buyin' you a Lexus, Marc, but if you're lucky I'll share a Ten Fiddy with you." FWIW, on the religion / non-religion thing, a good religion follows "natural law." That's what 90 or 95% of us would vote for anyhow. So, "I reject senseless materialism" and "I value my family and serving them extremely highly" are maybe reflective of natural law, we' know there's something off kilter about feeling otherwise. Done right, religion reinforces what we already kind of know in our conscience.
@ Dr. Brett - I dunno. A nice pair of Oakleys would make me pretty darned happy most mornings... but yeah, I'm with you. You can call it Christ's love, or the inherent goodness in doing right, but that is what ultimately gives a person a sense of satisfaction, it's what Marc was getting at I think. The search for "happiness" is illusory; I've only ever found happiness, that giddy feeling, very rarely. There's a deeper positive feeling, satisfaction+ you could call it, that is slower to arrive and much slower to go, that sort of has to be earned before you can enjoy it. That's what I generally shoot for; it lasts longer than the sugar rush emotionality of seeing a new Lexus has been driven into your livingroom. Personally, I'm calling the cops if I find a new Lexus in my livingroom because we live in a townhouse and if a Lexus is in my livingroom it's only because the next door neighbor's kid has jumped it, Dukes of Hazard style, up onto the second floor of my place.
Jim, I'm the choir and you're preachin to it. How will I cope? By reading this blog, if you are kind enough to re-print it every year around this time. Spot on, brutha.
I've never felt compelled to comment before but this post is rock solid, Jim. Peace and enjoy your Christmas in all the places you find it.
I too get a little depressed this time of the year.
And this year, more than ever, I just don't have the patience for "buy things for people! Spend lots of money on stuff!".
So I try to not get overwhelmed in the feeling that I'm supposed to be buying shit for people who, frankly, don't need it.
I cope by walking the dog at dawn, reveling in the quiet morning, and try to keep that quiet in a corner of my soul. 'Cuz I'm gonna need it.
I cope by trying to do better for others, regardless of what they do for (or to) me.
I spend some time with family and friends, because being able to spend time with them is a gift whose time is running out.
And yes, the reason for the season: it ain't about the dollars.
Having been un-employed for quite some time, but now back to work (fortunately), I gained a whole new idea about money and happiness, especially during this time of year. I have never been one to want something for Christmas, I'd rather give than receive. This time of year was always hard on my previous marriages in that the ex's spent us in to deep debt keeping up with the Jones gift-wise. Using plastic to put on a front dig deep into my values to the point that I would get very depressed about Christmas to the degree that it effected my job and personal life big time.
Being on unemployment last year was a nice test for me and the current wife. We both were broke and made the best of what little we had for each other that it was probably the best Christmas I have ever had!
This year is much the same, though now that we are both gainfully employed, we can afford a little more. But, nothing on charge cards, no bills unpaid to buy crap, etc.
The giving is also of our time. Monday, we hauled Salvation Army food and toys to some of the many less fortunate families in the area. I does a soul good to see a real appreciation for gifts, especially when they're from strangers who ask nothing in return.
All - thanks for the kind words.
@ SBJ - well put.
@ SakaK - I'll probably say something like it each year, because I go through the same thing each year. Maybe it needs to go in the "Best of" column on the right.
@ Kristen - running out of patience for stupid things is part of growing up. Some people never do. Others - well, we turn a little cranky.
@ Boz - I know you've been through some tough times. Hearing you've stumbled into happiness makes me happy. Hearing *how* you've gotten happy doesn't surprise me. I'm happier since I started caring less about material shit and more about my family, friends, and the Permanent Things.
We gave up the TV when the world went digital (hadn't watched much prior and decided to see if we were happy enough without)...finding myself amazingly calm not being barraged with ads. And this year, we decided to forgo presents for each other and consider, rather, all the things we've purchased lately: a tandem this past summer, pots/pans, new mtb shoes each, flights to see relatives, new running shoes each, upcoming concert, trip on the horizon...we didn't go so far as to dig them all out and put them under the tree, but considered it! We've been working hard for the past couple years to spend more carefully and deliberately -- removing ourselves from the noise has surely helped. It's amazing how easy it is to get wrapped-up in happiness=things...and how tough, yet fulfilling, it is to disconnect the two.
Great post.
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