Just before the Thanksgiving break, I had to run an errand over at Santa Anita Mall. As I was fruitlessly looking for a parking spot, I noticed a sign in front of the entrance to Nordstrom that proclaimed (I’m paraphrasing here): “In order to respect the Thanksgiving holidays, Nordstrom will not put up its Christmas decorations until November 26th.” My initial reaction was: “It’s about time!” My second reaction was less enthusiastically idealistic, assuming that, maybe, the store’s Christmas displays had been sidetracked somewhere in Pasadena, Texas (as opposed to Pasadena, CA). This got me thinking about a common social conversation that crops up around this time of year that usually begins with: “Isn’t it awful that…” and ends with “how commercialized Christmas has become” or, if you are a Fox News devotee: “how the ‘Thought Police’ are trying to take ‘Christian’ out of Christmas.” Once again, my initial thought was along the lines of: “Isn’t it too bad that Christmas has to become an intellectual war zone?” Mind you, I’m one of those who thinks it’s crass and distasteful that some retail outlets put up their Christmas decorations before Halloween (imagine the confusion that would create over at Party City!). I must admit, however, that my irritation at the presence of Christmas decorations before the last piece of candy has been given out to a Trick-or-Treater has less to do with the hallowed traditions surrounding a central celebration of our Christian tradition than it does with what I have come to call “Jingle Exhaustion.” By Christmas day, I simply can’t take one more badly arranged Christmas Carol intended to sell I-Pods or skateboards or the latest ‘gotta have’ toy, much less the “fingernail on a blackboard” arrangement of piped-in music at the local mall (It’s even worse if I’ve recorded a TV show before Christmas and don’t get to watch it until well after Christmas!).
So it was something of a surprise to me when the Thanksgiving holidays found me actually looking forward to the chaotic, atonal, commercialized shopping period that ends with a resounding, silent thud on December 25th. Many of my friends know that I spend the Thanksgiving holidays in Hawai’i (you would too, if you grew up on the East Coast where Thanksgiving generally meant snow, cold, overheated homes packed with relatives you only see once a year, and an inordinate obsession with lumps in the gravy). I consider my annual trip to Honolulu as a much more efficient (and incredibly less expensive) option to therapy. There is an annual Christmas parade down Kalakaua Avenue that ends with Santa traveling down the street in an Outrigger Canoe. I’ve generally managed to miss the parade, but circumstances found me in attendance this year. And, I must confess that I was absolutely delighted to see a Pacific Islander Santa waving to the crowds of shoppers from an over decorated Outrigger Canoe!
As I attempted to deconstruct my reaction, I began to realize that my delight had its roots in what I considered to be the incongruity of a Pacific Islander Santa taking advantage of a culturally specific mode of transportation in order to promote the commonly accepted wisdom that we should all be joyous during this “happiest time of the year.” That apparent incongruity caused me to realize that there are commonly accepted cultural symbols of a world where children are happy and things can give us pleasure which can take the edge off our tendency to see the world as an ever more threatening place. I began to see that in a world that is increasingly more fragmented, where peace is ever more elusive, and where disagreements in the public square are rapidly transformed into “with us or against us” polarities, a little silliness, a good dose of crass commercialism, and the use of seasonal icons in unexpected culturally specific ways can take the edge off our communal cynicism. I’m coming to think that we take ourselves way too seriously most of the year and that we need a break from our grim sense that the world is spinning out of control. Whatever one thinks about the commercialization of Christmas or its homogenization, the ever-present Muzak and Jingles remind us that this is a time of year when our thoughts turn to family, friends, and acts of generosity that won’t likely get repeated until someone we love has a birthday. I have an idea that the Christmas Parade down Kalakaua Avenue is going to be on my annual “must do” list.
