Who stole Christmas

Christian Century, Dec 2, 1998 by Bill McKibben

I've been called my share of names, but the only one that ever really stung was "grinch." The year that a few friends and I started the Hundred Dollar Holiday program through our rural Methodist churches, several business-page columnists in the local papers leveled the G-word--we were dour do-gooders, they said, bent on taking the joy out of Christmas. And, frankly, their charges sounded plausible enough. After all, we were asking our families, our friends and our church brethren to try and limit the amount of money they spend on the holiday to a hundred dollars--to celebrate the holiday with a seventh or an eighth of the normal American materialism. There's no question that would mean fewer Playstations, Camcorders, five irons and various obsessions. Perhaps my heart was two sizes too small.

But after rereading my daughter's well-worn copy of the Seuss classic, I breathed a sigh of relief. Not only was I not a grinch trying to wreck Christmas, it was abundantly clear who the grinches of our culture really are: those relentless commercial forces who have spent more than a century trying to convince us that Christmas does come from a store, or a catalog or a virtual mall on the Internet. Every day, but especially in the fall, they try their hardest to turn each Cindy Lou Who into a proper American consumer--try their best to make sure her Christmas revolves around Sony or Sega, Barbie or Elmo.

But Seuss's message went deeper for me. When we'd begun thinking about Hundred Dollar Holidays, it was mostly out of concern for the environment or for poor people. Think of all that wrapping paper, we said, all those batteries, all that plastic. Think of all those needy people who could be helped if we donated our money to them instead. Think of all those families who went deep into debt trying to have a "proper" Christmas.

All those issues are important. But the more we worked on our little campaign, traveling around our region having evening meetings at small rural churches like the one I attend, the more we came to understand why people were responding--indeed, why we had responded to the idea. It wasn't because we wanted a simpler Christmas at all. It was because we wanted a more joyous Christmas. We were feeling cheated--as if the season didn't bring with it the happiness we wanted. We were Christians, and we felt that the story of the birth of this small baby who would become our Savior, a story that should be full of giddy joy, could hardly break through to our hearts amid all the rush and fuss of the season. And many of our friends, Christian or not, felt that too much of the chance for family togetherness was being robbed by the pressures of Christmas busyness and the tensions of gift-giving.

Christmas had become something to endure at least as much as it had become something to enjoy--something to dread at least as much as something to look forward to. Instead of an island of peace amid a busy life, it was an island of bustle. The people we were talking to wanted so much more out of Christmas: more music, more companionship, more contemplation, more time outdoors, more love. And they realized that to get it, they needed less of some other things; not so many gifts, not so many obligatory parties, not so much hustle.

By giving ourselves a target--a hundred dollar Christmas--our small campaign provides us with an anchor to help us hold fast amid the gale of holiday commercialism. There's nothing magic about a hundred dollars; truth be told, I chose the name because it sounded good with "holiday." And obviously big families may decide to spend more at Christmas, and small ones may be happier spending less. But the hundred dollar goal seems to work well as a kind of check, a way of saying that your commitment to a better Christmas goes beyond merely complaining or telling yourself that this year it will be different.

If people worry about a transformed Christmas, it's often because they don't know what the new expectations will be. So when you talk with relatives, make sure you are free with suggestions about new kinds of gifts--everyone wants to give something. Tell grandparents that you'll tape them reading a storybook so your child will be able to hear them read it over and over; urge uncles and aunts to give a trip to the museum instead of a robot dinosaur. Don't be surprised if it takes a few years to readjust the holiday till you feel comfortable with it; there's no need to do it all the first December. Many families begin by drawing names each Christmastime, so that everyone has only one present to buy for the next year. Other families have developed elaborate running gags. In Unplug the Christmas Machine, Jo Robinson and Jean Coppock Staehli describe a clan that each year passes around the same garish necktie, but always disguised (one year it was baked into a Christmas cake).

In most of the families I've talked with, though, people have come to love making some of their own presents for friends and relatives. No one expects you to build them a gorgeous bookshelf or knit them an evening dress. People will be delighted with the simple, fun gifts that anyone can make. And when I say anyone, I know what I'm talking about; after failing junior high woodshop and metal shop in straight semesters, I pretty much resigned myself to buying. But as we started this project a decade ago, I realized I did have some skills that might be turned into gifts. I could cook, for instance, and so I got down to figuring out what beyond cookies and fruitcake might make good gifts. One year it was bagels--which turned out to be simple to make, a dozen at a time, with a mixer and a kettle of boiling water. Studded with cranberries and frozen for later toasting, they made a great present, one that people actually used. The next year it was spicy chicken sausage for the many people I know who don't eat much red meat. All went well until it came time to fill the casings; the KitchenAid motor must have been on a bit too fast, because before I knew it my brother was racing across the kitchen trying to keep up with a five-foot link.