For most people, I’m talking people my age in my hemisphere, Christmas lost it’s luster before puberty set in, hell, before double digits it lost it’s magic, but you were still happy about plastic shit and superman slingshots. Around puberty it became a symbol of running dog imperialism or Judea-christian oppression (even though the Judea part has nothing to do with swaddling clothes or fat elves).
If you have kids it gets special again, not with luster or magic, in fact the sit-com or too many egg nogs stories involve how hysterically bad you put together the kids new bike. Funny, bikes and computers are the only things I’m good at building; the parts are already cast, you just have to put them together. They are happy with the vicarious sense of joy and wonder from the kids. Ok, joy. Lying to the kids about magical fat elves never seemed quite right.
So you wind up with two sets of happy holiday memories, and the holidays still have a higher than average suicide rate. To be fair I don’t think the holidays grab perfectly normal folks by the short hairs and make em do anything they weren’t already thinking about, but they are lonely, especially if you have those magical memories and/or the vicarious ones but the nest is empty or you get the kids on weekends or something.
I remember Christmas when the kids were young, I remember it being joyous and funny, it’s a bit like watching a dog chase his tail until he’s tired and lays down. I don’t remember sharing it with their mom. I’m not sure why, I mean I’m not sure if it’s just me or if between the chores of lights, baking and and decorating we kept our distance from one another. I didn’t feel so betrayed by her deciding she was a lesbian to wipe all the joy out of my mind, I felt mostly relief. That’s not really an answer, not to my satisfaction, just a curiosity.
As an adult, married for the second time to a woman who never had children, we had a Christmas tradition that I kind of liked. We’d take a bath and fuck up Christmas carols until we found one we liked. Sometimes hot water had to be added multiple times. My favorite of mine was ‘May I play for you? Pa-rum-pum-pum-pum’ ‘no way, you bite pa-rum-pum-pum-pum’. Or and one about ‘May nothing you display…’
Except for bathroom songs once a year, my holiday attitude has sucked for decades. Even the bathtub songs are pushing the decade mark. If I were a good Christian the whole Christmas thing might make me angry; Not Jesus’ real birthday and the fat guy in red borders on satanic. There’s an old Arlo Guthrie song, well, arlo sang it, goes something like this;
Santa Claus has a red suit, he’s a communist
A beard and long hair must be a pacifist
Santa Claus sneaks in your house at night
He must be a dope fiend to put you up tight
Why do police guys beat on peace guys?
Yeah, it’s not a great song. But you know, he probably wrote it in the tub.
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