I Don’t Feel The Spirit Of Christmas Anymore

In three weeks’ time, it will be Christmas again. I don’t know about you but I don’t feel the spirit of the holiday season.

It used to be different when I was young. We had only peanut butter and cheese sandwiches each year for Christmas and New Year but it was there, the true spirit of Christmas. I remember being excited putting on my new dress and going from house to house wishing the occupants Happy Holidays and in return getting few coins or sometimes a meal.

I came from the land that celebrates the world’s longest Christmas season starting from early September till the end of January. My first Christmas away from home was a revelation. It was shocking to find out that Christmas and New Year here don’t differ from ordinary days. Aside from decorations on storefronts for commercial purposes, there is nothing to signify the most important time of the year. There are no carolers, no front door decorations, no Christmas songs on the radio, no merrymaking. On New Year’s Eve in my country, we make noise both to greet the New Year and in the belief that the din exorcises their surroundings of malevolent spirits. We light firecrackers, or banging on pots and pans and blowing car horns. Here, at that time of the year, the streets are dead.

And when I thought that you cannot reduce nonexistent to nothing, gradually, even those slightest hints of Christmas dissolve into forgotten memories. Those who put up trees and lights don’t do it anymore, what’s the use anyway, it is too much ‘ado about nothing, most people don’t celebrate Christmas anymore. The changes don’t occur primarily here, I noticed that even in my country there are noticeable differences in celebrating the yuletide season. It becomes more commercialized, more hyped but the true spirit is gone. It isn’t the way it used to be.

The familial, traditional, holy, special, cozy, warm, wondrous old feeling of magic, acceptance, and togetherness is not there anymore.

I don’t know. Maybe we grow old, money is tight, too little time,  maybe (I’ve read it somewhere) we have to realize that the commercialized version of Christmas is the marketer’s dreams, not ours. Maybe we have to stop trying to live up to that version and don’t fall for thinking we need to buy happiness at Christmas time. Enjoyment does not mean expense. I don’t know. Whatever the reasons, I don’t feel the true spirit of Christmas anymore.

How about you?