Holidays are a special time. Celebrations, gatherings, festivities, everybody dressed in clean, pressed outfits, that seem to be made just for the month between Thanksgiving and Christmas. Oh, the bright reds, and greens, Santa, snowmen, reindeer, cookies embroidered on plaid patches. Gaudy and loud and abusive. Red felt hats, with white puff balls sewn to the sagging end.
“I’m more festive than you, loser.”
On my way to work, around 6:30 AM, I drive past several houses that are so lit up with bright greens, shining gaudy reds they could be seen from space, yards packed so tight with inflatables you couldn’t pick your way through without a map and a compass.
“Check out my Christmas cheer.”
In the darkened streets of cloudy December morning, it looks alien and out of place, drowning out the streetlights, light pollution with a touch of flamboyant exhibitionism. It is a celebration of the power company, Chinese manufacturing capacity, and modern-day logistics, with the diesel powered, exhaust spewing monster engines. Every time I drive past an inflatable Frosty, or the Grinch, or Santa, I wonder if anybody calculated the carbon footprint.
“But wait, we use mostly LED lights around our eaves and window frames.” Of course, an LED is not bright enough to light the menagerie sprawling across the yard. And the star on top of the chimney has to be an incandescent bulb, from a lighthouse.
It’s a long way from the baby wrapped in cloths and placed in a humble manger. “Today in the town of David a Savior has been born to you; he is the Messiah, the Lord.” And you should place enough plastic on your house and in your yard to blind the average, God fearing pilgrim.
If an advanced civilization from a distant galaxy arrived during the holiday season, they would probably find the ostentatious displays were talismans, guarding against evil spirits. The ritual placement and obsessive patterns, all look to be totems.
It looks much more like the primitive attempts at bringing the undead ghosts of midwinter to heel than the celebration of a humble, loving savior. Like Dia de la Muerta with neon. Like the “Eve of Saint George’s Day when all of the evil things in the world will have full sway,”[1] with plastic wrap and tinsel.
Christmas is no longer a religious celebration, if it ever was, it’s an act of flashy one-upmanship. I drive past the displays, and wonder what they represent, how do you explain representing such a monumental religious occurrence with a giant, plastic abominable snowman, missing his teeth? I’ve tried and haven’t come up with an answer.
[1] Dracula, by Bram Stoker.
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This Post is republished on Medium.
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Photo credit: iStock
