Rising Toward the Light
by April Elliott Kent

This is the first year I've publicly uttered the phrase, "I don't celebrate Christmas"--mainly at work, since those who know me in "real life" already know the score.  I'm genuinely fond of my workmates, and while it's entertaining to watch their inner machinations ("Is it a religious thing?") play across their faces as they struggle for a politically correct response, my stance is not motivated by a desire to shock or offend.  It's just that Christmas is not a concept that works for me anymore.  I didn't give up on Christmas out of an inflated sense of ethical purity; I gave it up because it was breaking my heart.

There is a lot of talk about "holiday depression," about suicide rates which rise dramatically from Thanksgiving through the beginning of the new year. Oh, occasionally we acknowledge the soulessness of the season by bellyaching about "the true meaning of Christmas" and about celebrating the baby Jesus' birthday (though no historical or biblical source definitively establishes this, or any other time of year, as the time of Jesus' birth). 

Why, then, do we nod knowingly when we hear about the depression, the suicide rates, and the crass commercialism of the season - and then go along with it?  Why do our occasional attempts to scale back on holiday gift-giving, to bring the season down to a manageable (never mind meaningful) level, almost invariably fail, propelling us out to the mall on Christmas Eve in last minute despair?  Why do so many family gatherings at this time degenerate into spiteful shouting matches and land mines of insidious interpersonal dynamics?  Why, in short, does a holiday with its genesis in the celebration of the return of light, leave us feeling so dark?

The reality of winter in preindustrial societies was harsh, and occasionally lethal.  I suspect early solstice celebrations were engineered to gather to oneself the people and things necessary to one's physical survival.  Today, winter is not, for most of us, a life-or-death proposition - except, perhaps, emotionally.  So perhaps a more meaningful celebration of the season is to gather around us those people and things necessary for our emotional survival.  What sustains us?  What nourishes our spirit through the coldest, darkest season of the year?  For some, family; for others, good friends, kind acts.  For a few, nourishment can only be derived from sitting alone on a high bluff, looking out to sea, and contemplating.  We don't all draw nourishment from the same well, which is why the Hallmark-mandated "family Christmas" often feels hollow.  And if we can't find the nourishment we need at our own core, with rituals that make sense to us personally, no amount of flashy toys will fill up our empty spaces.

In his book The Battle for Christmas historian Steven Nissenbaum explores the roots of the winter holiday season and finds that as recently as the 19th century, the post-harvest season included a curious tradition of class based role reversal.  In a ritual reminiscent of our culture's Halloween "trick-or-treat" shenanigans, the post-harvest season found the community's impoverished roaming the streets and demanding from the wealthy the very best of their food and drink.  (As any adult being held hostage by a child's badgering for a specific - and expensive - Christmas gift can attest, this tradition has not entirely disappeared.)  Nissenbaum characterizes this ritual as possibly serving the purpose of "letting off steam," of releasing some of the resentments accumulated over the year by the poor toward the affluent. 

Interestingly, Capricorn, the sign occupied by the sun on the day we celebrate Christmas, is a sign closely connected to issues of class.  Capricorn asks, "What is my status?  What do I have to offer?  Where am I going?  Am I in the position of benefactor or beggar?"  Or more negatively: "What can I get?"  My thesis: that in this season of showing and evaluating status through such traditions as giving gifts, we are all too likely to ignore the tempering influence of Cancer, Capricorn's opposite sign, which asks, "Who am I really?  What do I need?  Where am I from?"  The best holiday traditions, I propose, are ones which honor our inner resources -- ultimately the source of everything we bring forth to the world in visible form.

For this reason, one of the few traditional holiday trappings that continues to bring me nourishment is the Christmas tree. I really like trees in general, but I especially enjoy the Christmas tree as metaphor. Capricorn is the sign that rules the most elevated point in the natural horoscopic wheel, and the Sun's passage there is a natural time for celebrating those gifts and riches we have to share with the world, and an appropriate season for mapping out future strategies. But in this season, remember, too, to nourish the Cancerian root system that has nurtured you as you pursue worldly aspirations. As the writer James Hillman wrote, "Even the tallest trees must send down roots as they rise toward the light."