Happy Getmas

If my brother wrote a comic strip, it would be Brewster Rocket: Space Guy. When his 4 year-old daughter runs up to me with the Vulcan hand-sign and says, "Live long and prosper," you understand why I'd make that leap. Anyway, in the comic strip, Christmas is called "Getmas," aptly describing the state of our consumeristic society of stuff-getting. Oooh, nice alliteration....

There are all sorts of FW's and articles and pleas to remember the reason-for-the-season, in the midst of all the frantic gift-giving/getting. So I won't repeat it here. What I will say is prolly going to sound...like I've entered an older generation that longs for simpler days. Not quite the horse 'n' buggy era, BUT...

[Cue music and put on Granny Voice]

When I was a young girl, I wasn't raised with Santa. Mum never told me a fat guy in a red suit was going to leave gifts for me or my sibs. Now, we did celebrate and have a tree with the lights, but we got the "spirit-of-Christmas" talk. One of my favourite memories is Mum waking me up to take me to my first Christmas Eve mass. The whole experience of it--intangible and lovely...the car ride there looking at the lights and the beautiful songs and the stained glass windows. BEAUTIFUL.

In kindergarten I had a conversation with a friend and she was explaining all about Santa. Really? I asked. But I was skeptical because she was also the one who told me Jesus gave us scabs--not randomly, of course, but when you get a scrape or a cut. My dad, who knew everything when I was in kindergarten, explained that scab-making was left to the innate intelligence of my body. So you see, I didn't buy into the Santa Thing, and I thought that Jesus prolly had more important things to do than give me scabs when I needed them.

I have a picture of one Christmas with my stepson where he is sitting in front of a MOUNTAIN of STUFF. Stuff that I would spend the next year cleaning off his floor and gradually throwing away. Happy Getmas. It was the guilt of divorce and the competition between two wounded parents that contributed to this frenzied gift opening where it was almost like a race to see what was next.

So we came up with the Jesus Christmas Rule of Three Gifts. This is how it goes: Jesus got three gifts. Are you saying you're better than Jesus? All right, then. What do you really want? It eliminated the stocking STUFFers and the superfluous. And they weren't deprived--they still had grandma & grandpa, aunts & uncles from both sides of the family. Plenty of more stuff to clean up for the next year. Pah-lenty.

On this first day of Christmas,
and the eleven more to follow into a new year,
I wish you all the gifts of the Spirit of Christmas:
loving kindness, compassion and hope for better times.
Wherever you are in this world,
wherever you are in your world,
I wish you PEACE.
The kind that passeth all understanding.
'Tis the season to open hearts
to receive the greatest gifts of Spirit
the kind that are wrapped in God's LOVE.

Merry Getmas. And Merry Christmas, too. :-) H.