THE FACT OF THE MATTER
BY PAUL HOPKINS
In an age where we are increasingly cynical, the thinking goes that Christmas is at best a hijacked pagan orgy, that of Saturnalia, and at worst a humongous hybrid of religious conditioning and monetary manipulation. Given the excesses in both celebration and in spending — for those who can afford it, that is — both arguments, arguably, stand up.
For me, Christmas runs deeper than mere religiosity or economic stimulation, its origins profound, sacred and etched in our very psyche, with enough magic to go round the world, making something special.
Why Christmas came to be an almost global phenomenon — even for people who never put foot inside a church — has to be understood in context. And the context — which does predate Christianity by tens of thousands of years — is that December kicks off winter in the Northern Hemisphere. And for most of human history, for nearly all our ancestors, winter spelt out not just the doom and gloom of Seasonal Adjustment Disorder but the salient fact that many would not make it to the other side of the Winter Solstice. Would, in fact, die.
The darkest days of December past saw plunging temperatures that would chill the weakest and oldest to the grave and climate play havoc with hunters and gatherers, so it was, with so little fodder or warmth, in many ways the survival of the fittest.
This is mirrored in the birth of Jesus, the story of hope, of life, of renewal, of salvation.
Those of our ancestors who miraculously managed by fluke or by fortune to make it beyond December 21, that shortest of days and longest of nights, celebrated the survival of nearest and dearest by feasting on what morsels they had managed to forage and celebrated like there was going to be no tomorrow. Life for our forefathers was brutish and short.
The majority of us, though by no means all contemporary humankind, are so detached from that notion today — when the cold means nothing more than mild annoyance and sometimes slippery roads — that it’s hard to grasp how recent this was, and that this was the way of all flesh for virtually all of human history.
Looking back at that scenario, even as recent as 150 years ago — little wonder Dickensian times are so entwined with many of the Christmas traditions still with us today — we can see how resilient we humans are: how innate is the struggle to survive, that to live to the dawn of a New Year is cause for celebration, with a feast or festival, or just outright debauchery.
Such celebrations went by many names over the millennia, and everyone did it their own way, hence the variations on how Christmas throughout the world, even to the point that it is not necessarily on December 25. Deep down, though, the message was, and is, always the same: “We made it through another year, so let’s spend a few days reminding each other of what’s good about life.”
Against an unforgiving Cosmos since its inception, we have survived; an inherently heroic species that has spent about 99% of its lifetime in needful circumstance. And, if you see no Christmas cards telling you that, it’s not because it’s not true, but rather it’s because there’s little profit to be made telling you so.
Despite the history lesson here, Christmas isn’t special because of what it was or where it came from. It’s special because of what it still is: a gathering that might well be the last time you see the faces of loved ones you celebrate with.
That part of Christmas has not changed. There’s always the Empty Chair on this day of days.
This Christmas, statistically, some of you are, in fact, travelling to see your grandparents, or parents, or siblings for the very last time. You don’t know it’s their last Christmas, of course — and, if you somehow could know, you’d maybe do it differently. You’d try to stretch out those moments, instead of losing in a haze of alcohol: you’d spend a little more time digging up and sharing old memories and laughing about your collective past. You’d spend less time worrying about the gifts and the cost, and more about how we’re really spending the precious time we have with one another.
So as you gather with family and friends — those you love — this Christmas Day, celebrate it with this in mind: You don’t get many of these, so make them count.
Affairs of the Heart (And Other Writings) by Paul Hopkins (Monument Media Press, €14.99), ‘a collection of stories to warm the emotions and light the soul’, is available at select book stores and from monumentmediapress.com
