Merry Christmas: An Analysis



I.
Every holiday is centered around the construction of an unreality. A certain day is singled out and assigned a new name, a new meaning, and a new social utility; this social reconstruction operates parasitically, using the day, the essential period of human time, as a tool of entrapment, where all, even those who do not celebrate, are consumed by the holiday's ethical cloud simply by waking up on said day. The day, so transformed by its promotion to holi-day, no longer operates in the scope of normal reality: in practical terms, work or school is often interrupted, new activities and rituals replace old ones, and certain colors, icons, and paraphernalia dot the landscape, interrupting any visual perception of normality; metaphysically, the holiday severs the day from the stream of calendared reality (you can picture the calendar day advancing out of the page, a void left behind between the normal days which surround it), resulting in an atmosphere of unreal experience, surreal ritual, and, most importantly, a collectively assumed transcendence or sacredness. The unreal and ritualistic atmosphere of a holiday provides a fertile plane for sublimated practice of certain problematic beliefs.

Christmas is often criticized in terms of "how commercial it has become, not like the old days...," however, this aspect is only the most obvious of problems, penetrating only thinly into the mass of psychic deception in the middle of the Christmas situation (let us, only half-playfully, visualize this mass as the stalk in the middle of the Christmas tree, obscured by branches and ornaments, the ritual mask). In fact, to emphasize this single problematic aspect is really a hinderance: by assigning blame to only contemporary aspects of Christmas, the deeper problems become innocent; it is a reactionary tactical method, a partial condemnation that allows for participation. While not leaving out these consumerist complications, I will focus on other issues, the most problematic of which is the role of Christianity in the contemporary culture of Christmas.

The critique I wish to put forth is based on the model of tradition as a tool of cultural reinforcement. Lacan states in his Seminar XV, "the traditional act [is] founded on a certain necessity of transferring something considered as essential in the order of the signifier," or "essential for a certain order of empire ... That it should be necessary to transfer it presupposes apparently that it is not transferred by itself." (Lacan 58) We can continue, I believe, to postulate that the need for transference and repetition implies an instability, and that, without tradition's yearly rehabilitation, the 'essential something' would fall apart, as would the order it sustains. Every tradition can be interpreted as the symptom of a fundamental cultural instability, a problem that resists resolution while perpetuating a pathological function of society.

II.
Before we continue, however, let us first consider the holiday's centerpiece, the locus point around which all the holidays' peculiarities take place, namely, the Christmas Tree. The tree lends itself elegantly to many different metaphorical and symbolic interpretations: the domestication of nature (or possibly the illusion of social domesticity as natural), the worship of nature, the decoration and worship of the phallus, the echo of pagan magic, and so forth. While ripe with possible readings, I don't think any of them alone may fully uncover the true symptomatic function of the tree; each undercurrent of meaning supplies a piece to the puzzle, but the resulting conception is garbled and complex. Instead I would offer the following idea: the Christmas tree, in all its splendor, serves the function of a nonsensical and irrational monument, a centerpiece so absurd as to make any activity in its proximity appear rational and sane. With this magical and insane spectre as a focus point, the equally manic dialogue of Christmas proceeds smoothly through the side door.

III.
The much lamented falling away of Christ from Christmas is, I believe, a myth, even in the secular celebrations of the holiday by non-Christians or non-believers. The spirit of Christ has simply been sublimated into the secular spectacle of the Christmas season, giving Him an indirect approach, a concealed evangelical attack. Christmas as a tradition represents the yearly reaffirmation of the more widespread social system of sublimated Christianity; in this sense the holiday is more effective on those who do not align themselves with the Christian religion. A telling trend of contemporary Christmas culture is the use of the term 'Xmas' to replace 'Christmas': the secular celebrator cannot bear to see the word 'Christ', because it exposes the hidden truth of the ritual - simultaneously they cannot bear to throw the word away, because subconsciously Christ is what they truly desire in their celebration. 'Xmas' may fool the conscious eye, but there is no denying the meaning. The holiday is transformed into an unconscious ceremony of repentance, involving both a request for salvation and an admission of belief on the part of the godless (who thinks, by replacing 'Christ' with 'X,' he has fooled everyone). A year of sin is atoned for through gift-giving, a simulation of Christian selflessness and charity. Christmas is both a confession and a preparation, washing away the accumulated sins against God and morality, to make room, of course, for new ones of the coming year.

On Christmas the world becomes a church. A reverent and ethereally sacred atmosphere descends upon the day: living room couches become pews, the godless become the faithful, practicing acts of (simulated) Christian morality. All is quiet and God is assumed.

Christmas is a confession not without its Hail Mary, its prescribed act of penance. Winter, in areas where the weather becomes very cold, represents a collective experiment in discomfort, a truly harsh environment of pain. Christmas transforms the discomfort of cold weather into an act of ascetic discipline (pain turned penitent becomes virtue). One need only imagine Christmas in the tropics to see the difference in psychic atmosphere added by the cold - is it just me or does it seem almost immoral to wear shorts on Christmas?

For the faithful, Christmas serves a simple purpose, acting as a yearly booster shot, a simple and effective reinforcement of belief. In terms of the Godless, the non-believers, Christmas culture serves a more complex role, quelling, on a yearly basis, unresolved questions of faith through a subconscious simulation of Christian observance, abstracting fundamentalism into secular concepts, sneaking God back into the soul hidden inside the wooden horse of Christmas.

In this way Christmas provides a pattern which all postmodern belief must follow. To go back to our primary metaphor, the true essence of belief exists as a dark and sticky trunk, unpleasing to the eye, something that one avoids contact with. Crystalline points of this undesired mass extend outwards, masking themselves with an eminently more pleasurable (and sweet-smelling) substance. This constructed field presents us with a landscape for play, in which we may partake in faith without practicing it explicitly: the tree of concealed belief awaits our interaction and decoration. As the tree is finished, our sublimated belief becomes complete, and nothing else is required except to congratulate ourselves, relax with brandy and eggnog, basking in the peaceful glowing spectre, successful participants in the contradictory cooperations of sin and virtue, faith and skepticism, God and man.


SANTA CLAUS: AN APPENDIX

Santa Claus is the personification of our idealized conception of aging: active, healthy, happy, kind, loved and loving, he is the Polar opposite of the unfortunate reality of the weak, bitter, depressed, and isolated senior citizen that haunts our possible futures -- he is the denial of the very thing we most fear becoming. It is very convenient then that as children we are taught that he is, in fact, real. When, as children, we realize our parents' charade, our belief in Santa only half dies. A ghost of the belief survives through our lives, ensuring us of a happy old age, of the inevitability of strength and stability in our last days. More than a denial of decay, Santa denies any cessation of improvement, instead progressing further upwards, acquiring superhuman powers as a senior citizen. Ultimately he is a denial of death: every Christmas his jolly visage returns, in better health than ever. He is a projection of the hopes for our older relatives, who, like Santa, we see yearly at around the same time; unlike Santa, older relatives appear weaker yearly, and eventually do not return at all. The half-belief in Santa Claus symptomatically represents our half-belief that we will never die.


© 2005 Nathaniel Davis

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