Christmas, Religion and a Consumer Holiday

by Christopher Barr

Christmas is a very odd time of year, where there are a lot of false reasons and ulterior motives that are driving lots of people.  It’s like this act, where people all have to play along with this absurd lie.  But then there is the good side that allows family and friends to come together and enjoy a nice meal around the table.

Oh wait, did I forget about all the presents?  That to me is another drawback to Christmas, is the gift giving.  I get that for kids it’s all exciting and surprising, but as you get older it all seems like an act, a role-playing exercise that cost a lot of money in the end.  Did I mention that my favorite Christmas story is A Christmas Carol, especially the first half?

For me, along with the yummy turkey dinner with family, the best things about Christmas are the movies.  It’s hard to pinpoint my favorites because I often have very different reasons for what I love about them.  There are the full on Christmas movies that deal with Santa Claus of some other Christmas themes and then there are the movies I love that simply take place during Christmas.  I’m looking at you Die Hard and Lethal Weapon, I’m not looking at you Iron Man 3.

But to me, I love the ones that use the innocents of Christmas to help support tragedy.  Like in the case of the Gremlins, when Phoebe Cates’ character Kate tells the story of her father going missing on Christmas Eve and days later being found stuck in the chimney dead.  Kate ends her story with, :…and that’s how I know there is no Santa Claus.”  Depressing I know, but I liked the honesty during a seemingly dishonest holiday.  When I was a kid back in 1984, I was in shock, along with the fact that Gremlins is a nutsy movie in the first place.

While most people are obsessing over shopping, I’m watching Christmas movies.  It’s hard to watch them any other time of year so you got to get them all in.  Bad Santa is one of my top musts during the holiday.  This is the story of two thieves and their method of attack.  They plan their heists during the Christmas season while most people are in a frenzy and distracted, these two men can make their move.  It is one of the most hilarious movies as well; Billy Bob Thornton plays one of the most dislikable characters in American cinema and  I loved every minute of it.  He was so depressed and on the edge of suicide I couldn’t help but damn near piss my pants laughing.

Woman in Food Court: Look who's here! It's Santa! Tell Santa what you want for Christmas!

Willie: [yelling] I'm on my fucking lunch break, OK?

Woman in Food Court: The manager's going to hear about this.

Willie: You think you're a threat? You think you can make my fucking life any worse? Go ahead, take a shot!

National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation is also a must during Christmas, where you have to invite yourself to a Griswold big family Christmas.  It’s a simple story where the Griswold’s invite family, or in some cases not invite, to their home to celebrate the holiday but of course things don’t quite work out as planned, those damn Christmas lights.  There are so many gut-bursting scenes in this movie but if I had to narrow it down, for me, it’s got to be when Clark is left stranded in the attic for the day while the rest of the family go do some last minute shopping.  Clark is at first screaming and yelling for someone to come save him, but settles into the whole not-being-saved thing by playing old home movies while sobbing.  Hilarious stuff, but when everyone gets home and Clark’s wife Ellen opens the attic door and Clark, along with boxes and the film projector fall straight down, wow, pissing pants with crazy uncontrollable laughter.  It gets me every time.

“Where do you think you're going? Nobody's leaving. Nobody's walking out on this fun, old-fashioned family Christmas. No, no. We're all in this together. This is a full-blown, four-alarm holiday emergency here. We're gonna press on, and we're gonna have the hap, hap, happiest Christmas since Bing Crosby tap-danced with Danny fucking Kaye. And when Santa squeezes his fat white ass down that chimney tonight, he's gonna find the jolliest bunch of assholes this side of the nuthouse.”

A more recent movie has been added to my favorite holiday fare, is Elf, I love the snow ball fight, it cracks me up every time.  To me the joy of that movie is every scene Will Farrell is in, which are pretty much them all.  Elf was able to capture, phony or not, the true spirit of Christmas thanks to Will Farrell.  He’s like a little kid the whole time and it was simple a joy to watch.

Scrooged with Bill Murray was awesome as well with it’s funny spin on an old story.  Anything with Bill Murray is awesome as far I’m concerned.  Jim Carrey as the Grinch was funny and sad really, but that’s what’s great about the best of them, is they capture in their own little ways, that we must all just play alone for the sake of childhood innocence.

A Nightmare Before Christmas was genius really.  Taking a Halloween character like Jack Skellington and seeing how he reacts to the world of Christmas, “What’s this.? What’s this?”.  This was well done because we all love those fish out of water stories and this one, with its spectacular special effects, stands as one of the best and most beloved holiday movies for a great deal of people, let’s face weirdoes like Tim Burton but we wouldn’t want it any other way.

Christmas is the most widely celebrated holiday in the Western world, it is one of the unavoidable holidays because at least on a consumer level, it’s half of most businesses annual income.  But what about the religious aspects of Christmas and do they still exist or are we all just too consumed with consumption?  There is that debate to ‘keep Christ in Christmas’ but the problem with that in modern society is Christ is PR and money is the new religion, so Christmas has become a series of buying unnecessary products as an obligation resulting from exploiting a false holiday.  The commercialization of Christmas is truly people buying other people things they don’t need, taking away the focus people should be using their money and time for.   But with our minds all directed toward a holiday orgy of stuff, those that rule over us all get to profit in the billions.  After the smoke all clears most people are deeper in debt and stuck in their station in life more than ever. 

Religious people all just play along with their phony holiday, believing it was theirs in the first place, when in ancient Babylon, the feast of the Son of Isis (Goddess of Nature) was celebrated on December 25, long before the allege birth of Christ.  Christmas in Christianity was stolen from the Pagans but the Old Testament showed an angry God that ordered all pagan idols removed.  Christmas, like the religions themselves are all hand-me-downs from ancient times.

There will always be conflicts between believers and the secular non-believers over the level of religion in this very consumer holiday.  Religious moderates and atheists alike will celebrate because they have to really, if they don’t they are seen as spoilers of the spirit of Christmas.  For me though, I’m cool for the most part with all the bullshit.  I certainly don’t stress out over it all because I see it as silly, a good chance to watch a good movie like How the Grinch Stole Christmas, or Elf and maybe for a little while I’ll buy into the spirit of Christmas.

Pass the turkey please….