Truth Hurts: The Real Meaning of Christmas

Our columnist serves his hottest, Scrooge-iest holiday take

The truth is, Christmas is a holiday for children. That is my hottest, Scrooge-iest take. After all, ‘tis the season to look in the mirror and ask, “What is the meaning of this time of year?” The answer is simple: little kids laughing and/or tweaking on peppermint bark and/or napping in a pile of wrapping paper and ribbons.

There are other, lesser but still valid, responses, like “giving is better than receiving,” but allow me to tweak that cliché: “giving to children is better than receiving.” Am I making my point? This may feel like an opinion that is coming out of nowhere, but I promise you it’s not.

The next few weeks will be filled with shopping, gingerbread, and festive non-denominational decorations. You will be stressed, exhausted, and filled with existential melancholy as the year abruptly comes to an end, wondering where the days go. It’s not your fault you grew up; we all have to.

So don’t lose sight of the big picture: you were once a child, and the adults in your life did everything they could to make you believe in flying reindeer. Think about that for a minute. There was a time in your life when you just accepted there was an all-powerful demigod who could read your mind.

Ha, ha. Kids are cute, but not very smart!

And if you’re alone this holiday, don’t sweat it. Christmas morning is just another morning. I spent many a Christmas morning alone, only to spend the rest of the day going to the movies and eating Chinese food with thousands of Jewish New Yorkers.

Which brings me to the War on Christmas: it never existed. It was just ragebait invented by Fox News executives to sell reverse mortgages to the elderly. You can say ‘Merry Christmas,’ because that’s what I say all the time, but you can also shout Happy Holidays! Or Happy Hannukkah! Or Happy Kwanza, or Happy Winter Solstice, or Happy Rapacious Capitalism Month, or Happy Pagan Goblin Day. Whatever! I love it all. It’s December, and that means I can eat all the frosted cookies I want. Oh, and also, it means peace and goodwill to human beings, especially knee-high ones.

I was raised Catholic and Baptist, and my favorite Christmas carols are “O Holy Night” and “Silent Night,” because they’re beautiful, quiet little hymns about a small family far from home. To me, Christmas will always be about the love of a father and mother, of any parents or parent, and their hopes for the small life trembling in their hands.

I was always moved as a boy by the Baby Jesus story that follows his blessed birth in Bethlehem, and that’s him as a swaddled refugee, held to his mother’s chest. At the same time, his father nervously scans the horizon as they flee to Egypt to escape King Herod’s threats of violence. They would do anything to keep their son safe.

Christmas is about children.

I don’t have children, and I think other people’s kids are delightful, so long as they’re not sitting behind me on a Southwest flight to Texas, but Christmas is their time, and I want to see those little freaks delirious with Yuletide joy.

I may not have kids, but I’m blessed to be surrounded by them, and I get to enjoy their enthusiasm in delightfully small increments of time. I’m fortunate to be included in multiple Google Doc Christmas gift docs carefully composed by my tween nieces and nephews. One of the unexpected pleasures of middle age is listening to my friends talk about their kids, which is always a roller coaster of hopes, fears, and unconditional love. I’m especially drawn to my friends who are fathers, old pals who, once upon a time, were human soup cans of emotion, sealed shut. But now, as men in their forties and fifties, they’re all one recent memory away from blubbering, and I’m here for it.

I was thinking about this topic as I strolled through a hastily constructed Christmas market filled with stalls overflowing with expensive, handmade wind chimes, scarves, and wooden salad bowls. I thought, “These are gifts for homeowners in high-tax brackets.” Don’t get me wrong, I’d love a fancy new salad bowl, but I have a birthday. I love gifts. Who doesn’t? But as I browsed the high-end junk while sipping a cup of warm apple cider, I thought about my nephew, who wants another basketball because one can never have too many, even if his mother gently disagrees.

I want to apologize in advance to anyone who celebrates SantaCon, the annual binge drinking street parties where tens of thousands of adults dress like St. Nick and stumble around in public, getting sick in trash cans in front of six-year-olds holding hands with their daddies. I have seen that before, during SantaCon, which I treat like a yearly zombie invasion. I’m usually up early so I can run my errands and return home before the Ho-Ho-Hopocalypse descends on New York. Again, I don’t want to make anyone feel guilty, but the holiday season is for snot-faced, foot-stomping, rosy-cheeked goblins with eyes full of wonder.

I don’t watch Hallmark Holiday movies because I don’t think Christmas is sexy. I don’t even like traditional Christmas movies, but the best ones are almost always kid-centered: A Christmas Story, Miracle on 34th Street, Home Alone.

I’m a fan of It’s a Wonderful Life, but that’s not a Christmas movie. It’s about capitalism, despair, and benevolent otherworldly powers. I love it, but it’s not actually about Christmas.

For the past few years, my go-to Christmas-time flick has been director Ridley Scott’s existential 2012 Alien prequel Prometheus, starring Michael Fassbender as an insane robot. It ends with a fight between a space squid and a hairless alien goth. (Trust me, there’s a Christmas reference.)

I know I’m coming off as a Grinch, but remember his lesson: Christmas isn’t about stuff, it’s about family. Community. Specifically, little boys and girls. Isn’t that nice? See? I’m a nice guy, god dammit. Christmas is not for adults.

I despise “Secret Santa” office games. Even when I was drinking, I avoided boozy holiday parties. I would prefer to come over and quietly eat cheese than trim trees.

I don’t want to come off as judgmental, but I have never been amused by your fake antlers, Brandon. I don’t want my eggnog spiked with bourbon. I prefer my annual mug of nog to taste the way it’s supposed to taste: weird, thick milk with nutmeg. Also, let’s talk about mistletoe because there’s always someone out there who thinks it’s still a thing when it’s clearly not a thing. It is the creepiest of year-end traditions. Anyway, if you want to kiss me, bro, ask me, and we’ll see.

I feel the same way about Halloween, by the way. That is a holiday for children, too, and I largely oppose adults dressing up in slutty costumes and getting wrecked. Halloween is not Goth St. Paddy’s Day. It’s a night meant to teach the next generation a valuable life lesson: If you eat too many Sour Patch Kids, you will want to die.

There are plenty of adult holidays, like Super Bowl Sunday and the first day of soup season, September 22nd (I may be the only person who celebrates). And my opinion applies in reverse: kids should not celebrate Valentine’s Day, a day dedicated to romance strategically placed smack dab in the middle of dark, cold winter, right when everyone is getting cabin fever. July 4th is a rare holiday that has something for little ones, sparklers, and grown-ups, beer.

I’m mindful that I was 10years old once, with one pajama footie in the twilight wonderland of childhood and the other in the sunlight of adulthood, lying in bed, floating above my dreams, listening for Santa’s reindeers’ hooves clop-clopping on the roof, and wondering if the jolly old elf even existed, while also keeping my ears open to what was happening in the warm kitchen: my father gently cursing as he slowly built a Star Wars spaceship playset for his son, some 10,000-piece toy that I would lovingly destroy a few days or weeks later.

Christmas morning was a show my parents put on for their children. Their Christmases were far less happy than ours were, which was their heart’s desire. They had struggled with money, depression, and anger, but my holidays were light and warm and full of gasps and laughter.

My old man would sit there, smiling, as my brother and I skinned our presents alive. My mom would also hover above us, watching our faces. When it was her time for a gift from him, we’d shush each other and watch her turn into a glowing child as he’d stand behind her and put on a new necklace or present her with a box full of brand-new oil paints. And when it was his turn, he’d unwrap a pair of socks or a tie and chuckle, saying the same thing: “This is just what I always wanted.” I believed him too. I remember being proud of the socks I’d pick for him.

Years later, he’d tell me that’s what adults are supposed to say on Christmas when they get socks or ties, not because socks or ties are wonderful gifts, but because who doesn’t want their family to be happy and safe, watching each other with half-moon eyes, ruby-kissed cheeks, and greedy smiles.

John DeVore is an award-winning writer and editor whose funny/sad memoir about grief, friendship and jazz hands, Theatre Kids, is now available.