Reimagining the Holidays
Christmas in China seems to be one of the great contradictions of the modern era. A socialist country, albeit with a large Christian population, that truly embraced the commercial elements of Christmas. In my early days (2007) in a small city, Christmas showed up in all the wrong places: carols at a KTV in July, tree decorations from 1993 on the door of the hair salon, knock off Santa and Mickey Mouse sharing a poster on the wall of a Kindergarten. By the time I left (2018), China had gone full-on: polished mall displays and Holiday music at Starbucks the day immediately following Halloween.
Living abroad, there were very few family engagements during the holidays. All the traditions of Christmas were take it or leave it. I remember working many years on Christmas Eve and Christmas Day. Most people there didn’t have the emotional connection to the holiday that we did. There was often a total lack of festive atmosphere. What if the shoe were on the other foot: can you imagine what it would be like to celebrate Lunar New Year in Wyandotte, Michigan? Some of you reading this may be asking yourselves “What’s Lunar New Year?” Exactly.
Old traditions were totally taken away and new traditions sprung up to replace them. The first one was sushi dinner on Christmas Eve. Why sushi on Christmas Eve? No real reason other than we love sushi, we love sake, and the Eve should be a night of joy. We started celebrating Advent, building a sense of anticipation and wonder at the season. As the years went on, the period between the fourth Thursday in November and December 25th became less and less about food, presents, football, and family. It became an open window to imagine positive changes in the world, an excuse to show kindness to people who might have otherwise thought it was weird.
I worked at a large psychiatric hospital in Shanghai starting in 2012. My favorite activity each year was walking the wards and singing Christmas carols to the hundreds of women and men who were in that facility long-term. Many of them were lonely, bored, and feeling forgotten. It began one year when my boss dressed up as Santa Clause and delivered oranges (a gift representing health and prosperity in China) and a few of the office staff sang ‘Jingle Bells’ and ‘Wish you a Merry Christmas’. From there, the caroling became more elaborate each year. We looked forward to it and so did the staff and patients. It was a bright spot in our often-dark world, a bit of hope peeking through the dark cracks of the psych ward.
In suburban America we are often drowning in good food, good wine, and fun toys throughout the holiday season. We experience a holiday hangover in January rather than renewal and hope. Can I suggest that we totally reimagine the holidays as they are? What if the holidays were a season of intense activity of reaching out in love to the lonely, the sick, and the oppressed? Without digging too deep into the origins of the holiday, I’ll share the original Christmas story as I’ve heard it.
St. Nick (though everyone in his neighborhood called him Nicky) was a Bishop in what is now modern-day Turkey. There was a family in his area with three daughters. The father of the family passed away unexpectedly and so the family was in dire straits, being unable to provide a dowry so these three daughters could get married. At that time, for a woman to be unmarried meant she would be extremely vulnerable in the society. It would be easy to be taken advantage or fall into prostitution. Nicky found out about this and snuck by one night, slipping three gold bars through the window of their small house (no he didn’t come down the chimney). The gift wasn’t for amusement, it was to give life back to those three young women.
This holiday season, give the gift of life. It’s probably a lot cheaper than whatever you were going to buy at Sharper Image anyhow. A few ideas:
· Rather than buy more stuff, give away what you were planning on spending. Sponsor someone to go through a recovery program or offer to pay someone’s medical bills
· You may be hurting this holiday season and that’s ok. But in the midst your pain, it always makes things better to serve others in someway
· Use the holidays as an excuse to reconcile with an enemy – an estranged family member or friend who wounded you in some way
· Celebrate in ways that are meaningful to you. As China showed me, there’s no right or wrong way to do the holidays. If slow roasting a Turkey is not your thing, have Tacos, or whatever makes you happy.
Given the situation with COVID this year, it occurs to me that many people in our area are just as lonely as those folks on the psych ward in China. Bringing back the tradition of caroling seems the perfect CDC-guidelines approved way of spreading hope this year (outdoors and distanced). We are planning to carol in the Detroit area this year during the month of December. If you would like to be involved in some way, even if you are not in Michigan, you can contact me at drewfralick@gmail.com and I’d be glad to brainstorm with you on some ways to reimagine the holiday season for you and yours this year.