I am so not one of those people who sit around decrying the commercialism of Christmas. If buying gifts for your friends and family seems wrong or obligatory or like an empty gesture to you, or wasteful, or over-the-top, or show-offy and competitive or like a weaponized version of love, don’t do it.
I don’t–but I also don’t begrudge or much pay attention to what anyone else does.
My old friend from Maine sends me a Gustave Baumann calendar each year: I send her a book. I contribute to a few of my favorite charities. I hand-address and hand-write a message and send out Christmas cards. And I deck out my living space with old cards I’ve saved often for years, vintage mercury bulbs, Advent calendars, string lights and candles.
But mostly for me Christmas is about the mystery, the liturgy, the Sacraments. I love switching out my Ordinary Time Weeks 18-34 breviary, which I bought used decades ago and is swathed in dark green imitation plastic, for the Advent and Christmas season one, bound in dark blue leather.
Christmas is about getting quiet, sitting in the early morning dark, contemplating the shortness of our time on earth, giving thanks. Preparing for the birth of a baby…
To that end, I just learned of the Japanese festival of laying broken pins and needles to rest. It’s called Hari Kuyō, and it is held on February 8th [for us, the Solemnity of the Immaculate Conception] in Kanto region and on December 8th in Kyoto and Kansai regions.
The idea is to give thanks for the needles: the work they’ve done, the people they’ve served. The broken needles are laid to rest by being ceremoniously stuck into a block of soft tofu. Participants may also pray for the improvement of their seamstress or tailoring skills in the coming year.
From a post on the site KHG Arts: Textile Arts, Education, Care:
“The ideas that are so central to this festival day struck me as ones I already held dear—that there is joy to be found in small things, practices of economy v. wastefulness, and cultivating respect for the everyday tools that allow us to do so much. In Japan, this is known as Mottainai—the concept of expressing regret towards wasteful behavoir and, in turn, valuing small everyday objects by using them and disposing of them in an economical and respectful way.”
I love that. Mottanai doesn’t mean criticizing everyone else’s supposedly wasteful behavior and meanwhile going around with a carping, Scrooge-like heart. That’s a waste of a heart, which is surely just about the worst kind of waste possible.
For my own part, almost every one of my little Christmas items has a story. I can tell you where I lived when I bought it, or who gave it to me, or why it delights me so much that I’ve hauled it around from place to place year after year, decade after decade. These small everyday objects, all the more precious for being brought out but once a year, symbolize part of the meaning of Christmas for me and they also nurture my child-like heart.
So whatever nurtures your own child-like heart this season, go for it. If it’s driving you crazy that everyone else is out buying presents, maybe it’s because you feel deprived and lonely and unloved (a feeling I myself know well!).
In that case, maybe buy YOURSELF a present.
Coda to a recent post, “How Can I Keep From Singing”:
In today’s Office of Readings, the Second Reading, again from St. Augustine, ends like this:
“So, then, my brothers, let us sing now, not in order to enjoy a life of leisure, but in order to lighten our labors. You should sing as wayfarers do — sing, but continue your journey. Do not be lazy, but sing to make your journey more enjoyable. Sing, but keep going. What do I mean by keep going? Keep on making progress. This progress, however, must be in virtue; for there are some, the Apostle warns, whose only progress is in vice. If you make progresss, you will be continuing your journey, but be sure that your progress is in virtue, true faith and right living. Sing then, but keep going.”
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