#7 - christmas is okay
#7 - christmas is okay
long, luxurious togetherness is the gift
POV: I’m Hima - a South Asian, medium brown skin, cis-gender, able-bodied, straight woman living as a settler on the Indigenous lands, T’karonto. I was born in Scarborough, raised Gujarati-Jain, middle-class, with English as my first language. My parents immigrated by choice via London and East Africa and are still together. I have two sisters and no extended family living locally. I experience ADHD symptoms. Much of what I write will be informed by some of these lived experiences.
Even though we observed Christmas every year, we were never allowed to get a tree. There were presents, and chestnuts roasting, but no tree. Despite annual whining, my mom held firm that the tree was a Christian symbol just waiting to save us in the throws of holiday frailty. Looking back, I think she actually might have been avoiding more mess and storage in our 1600 sq ft. house for five on the north-west end of Scarborough. Given that we also weren’t allowed any pets, morally condemned for even thinking about wanting to cage a living being (but also dog hair is a bitch), the denunciation pattern reveals itself.
It wasn’t until I was 28 years old, spending Christmas on the beach in Santa Monica with my then partner’s Dad, Peter - a self-proclaimed neurotic producer, who had been saved from his Jewish roots about two decades prior - that I decorated my first tree. I was mildly excited. But after Peter micromanaged the process and spent the next five days leaping up from the couch every time he noticed a gap in ornament distribution, the excitement quickly faded.
I didn’t think about a tree much after that and our eventual unceremonious break-up. For years after, my parents spent most of December in India or on suspiciously long cruises that my mom hated and my dad could not get enough of (like literally overeating to get his money’s worth). My sister, Sonal, would host orphan Christmas at my parent’s house in Markham, scooping up a few other orphans to join us, and occupy a couch for 7-8 hour stretches, while eating cheese, tofurky, and watching Love Actually. At some point, she would scream at me for not contributing enough to her Martha Stewart inspired vision; a tradition that continues to this day.
I have always loved the holidays - not the gifts, the decor, or even the music, but the cultural assumption that we will, and we should make time for each other. It is the only time of the year where long, luxurious togetherness is the cultural priority, not merely an option on the menu. As you get older, seeing friends twice or thrice a year can feel like an accomplishment in-between productivity demands, and the holidays often accounted for 50% of that commitment, and desire.
This cultural narrative is so dominant it preys on the validity of realities that do not reflect invitations, perfectly arranged long farm dinner tables, and brag-worthy gifts for the playground, and oppresses those who feel immense pressure to create perfectly arranged long farm dinner tables and can not afford brag-worthy gifts for the playground. In a society where community and communal living have been largely eroded; these cultural narratives are dangerous emotional and mental daggers. It’s not to say that some do not experience personal fulfillment and joy in these traditions; it’s to say homogenous cultural norms are always at the privilege of some, and the expense of others.
Homogenous cultural norms, wrapped in reading socks and oversized blankets, can seem warm and fuzzy, but they too are tools of the colonial project (a friend dearly reminded me this week). Millions of dollars are poured into Christmas messaging and decor in public spaces, and while many perceive Christmas to have evolved into a secular holiday - it’s not, and further centers the Christian-state and maintains the ‘other,’ who can be exploited while chasing a semblance of belonging. Religious pluralism without structures to support meaningful cultural power is no more than a diversity and inclusion workshop. What would happen if the same resources were allocated to centering Indigenous holidays? Surely it would shift collective awareness, and return power to Indigenous communities and teachings in our cultural consciousness.
We all already know Christmas is a capitalist wet-dream, but it’s less about buying the stuff and reinforcing narratives that gaslight you from deeper truths. Peace and goodwill, for who and by who? Rest up, because, after two weeks, we own your time for the year. The feelings that Christmas evokes are absolutely real and deeply human - togetherness, giving, receiving, sharing, being - but do we only want cultural permission to have these feelings once a year? Capitalism and colonialism are most covert when co-opting our humanity to further the project.
I am a total patsy for it all; because I do want those feelings. I need those feelings. Alas, I’d like them more than once a year. But we persist, aware of colonialism and submitting to it while living within its walls, poking at its legs until they collapse underneath. This may wreak of Grinch-like sentiments, but once you see colonialism, it is essentially tattooed on your pupils. Think of it as less grinch, and more hopeful futurity. All I want for Christmas is liberation (and system transformation).
Last year, Ciaran and I got our first tree together; his first tree since he moved to Toronto 7 years prior. I was reticent, but I knew it was important to him, so I drove the car to the local farm. In my own emotional disarray at the time, the tree, with piano ballads and a 12-hour YouTube fire cast to the TV in the backdrop, surprisingly lit me up; the decades of Christmas movies and ads now firmly adjoined to the feeling of hope I desperately needed.
This year, excited to recreate the same feeling, I planned for a ‘first day, first tree’ purchase on November 15 to maximize the season. You can imagine my surprise when I came home after a therapy session to find a tree, decorated, and a man on one knee. I froze for 1 minute and 40 seconds (it’s on video so there is no denying this one) and eventually mustered a shakey ‘of course!’ through the overwhelming shock of the moment; allowing feelings of love and gratitude to flood me over the 48 hours that followed.
Have I signed up to buy a Christmas tree for life? Nah. Colonialism will be dead by then. On the other side, maybe it’ll be Christmas all year 🤷🏽♀️
Happy Holidays friends.