Things I Love About Christmas

This year, more than in any other, I have been regularly encountering earnest and impassioned anti-Christmas sentiment from those around me. I've found it wherever people feel safe to complain about their family: on blogs, and over drinks in a bar, and in passing around the house.

The main source of anti-Christmas sentiment seems to involve grown children (my friends) who begrudge enforced time with their families. And to be fair, as I've listened and tried to understand these complaints, many of them seem damned reasonable. I have friends whose parents are acrimoniously divorced and demand exactly equal time spent on Christmas day, then try to undermine the other parent by guilting the children from leaving. I heard of insane step-parents and drunken racist relatives and right-wing siblings and physical fights. And the upshot of all this is that I feel both a little sad about the world and also terribly grateful for my far-from-perfect-but-nevertheless-pleasant-and-respectful family.

And so while I don't mean this as a gloat to people who suffer these relative torments (haHA - pun of the day right there), I feel the need to speak up in favour of Christmas. Christmas fills me with that internal wiggly feeling that is a sort of combination of contentment and excitement, and usually I also get a big childlike grin. Don't get me wrong, there are also many things that I can't stand about Christmas, but none of them are unusual or original, and there are plenty of outlets for them without me listing them here. Rather, I would like to pay tribute to the things I love about Christmas:

Decorations. It's like the houses are all dressed up and hoping to dance with that boy they've been looking at all year but been too shy to talk to, or at least have him smile and think they look pretty.

Presents. The buying of them. I like having to pay that little bit extra attention to the shortlist of people I love and am shopping for, so that I can anticipate something they will genuinely enjoy. I also like making things in bulk and distributing them a bit more broadly in general goodwill.

Mystery Charity Shopping. Having no little children in my family at present (a great shame at Christmas time) I like to go to the toy department at Myer, ogle all the frankly fucking awesome toys that get made these days, and buy something small for one of those wishing trees. I usually do this at the end of the long and frenzied day I've spent squeezing all my Christmas shopping into because I left it to the minute.

Wrapping. I love choosing coloured papers and complementary ribbons and baubles and then making a hack of them as I impose my terrible wrapping skills on them.

Food with Friends. I like that there is a time of year which places an onus on catching up with people you care about, because otherwise it would be all too easy to let some of those people drop right out of your life. There are degrees of friendship and while there are many people that I don't need to see regularly, I do like to stay in touch with. Then there are my good friends and the barbeques and dinner parties with them that involve great home-cooked food, good wine and the perfect company. Love 'em.

Christmas Dinner. Oh my lord my family is good at food. I wont go into too much detail, but let me just say that Christmas dinner with my family is a meal to revere.

Goodwill. Let's face it, there's a place for it all year round, but a bit of a boost never hurt anyone.

Little Kids. They can be horrors, and they can smell foul, but little children on Christmas, when their faces light up with the wonder and magic that they feel present in the world, are just the absolute best. If for no other reason, filling children with wonder is surely more than justification enough for Christmas.


Disclaimer - I am not religious and don't care two figs for the spiritual significance of the day. I like celebrating loved ones with food and sparkly things. Werd.