Bing Crosby was right, in many respects. Not so much in the “I’m an old Cowhand from Rio Grande” respect, but certainly in the sentiment that, around this fine time of year, we have a lot to be thankful for.
I am, for example, thankful that Sharon Osborne got hysterically sozzled live on last weekend’s X-Factor and, after seeing the magical Same Difference wheel out a candle-swaying children’s choir as backing singers, inexplicably slurred: “What gimmick are you having next? Midgets on skates?”
Most of all however, I am thankful for the overdue DVD release of the final series of Seinfeld, which among its criminally underappreciated episodes has brought back in remastered technicolour the inspired invention of Festivus.
Festivus, for those not in the know, is a glorious Yuletide anti-festival founded by Frank Costanza, borne out of an argument with another man over the last doll in a toy shop. The altercation stretched Frank’s dissatisfaction with the concept of Christmas to breaking point and, in Frank’s own words, “as I rained blows upon this man, I realised there had to be another way.” Indeed there was, and Festivus, with its eight-foot aluminium pole in lieu of a tree, customary familial wrestling matches (“Feats of Strength”) and public expressions of disappointment with one’s nearest and dearest (“The Airing of Grievances”) was conceived.
Brilliantly, thousands of people worldwide now celebrate Festivus every year, partly in homage to the Seinfeldian creation, partly as a reaction to the same forces that caused Frank to shun Christmas. However, what is truly baffling is that Festivus is seen by many as baffling. The whole idea of modifying the Christmas holiday in any way is still viewed in the West as ludicrous, an inane plot device for sitcoms, an invasion to be fiercely resisted. One only has to look at how Betjeman’s “Advent 1955”, that Alpha lament of the commercialisation of Christmas, is trotted out at this time each year by the conservative establishment.
This annual façade postulating that we are somehow losing the “meaning” of Christmas irks me no end. Our entire Westernised conception of Christmas transcended its religious heritage long ago, and the sooner we as a nation accept that Christmas is a convenient umbrella term for a witches’ brew of nonsensical customs, the sooner we can start to enjoy it.
Because the fact is that we’re all celebrating a Festivus of sorts. Each household adopts its own variation of Christian, pagan and commercial rituals to supplement, in the modern era often supplant, the olden no-frills Christian message, in the same way that the Costanzas modified the twentieth century religious and corporate message for their own ends. The majority of us – 98% in Manchester, according to the stats - don’t celebrate Christmas any more in its “true” biblical sense, so what is Christmas in name is something quite altered in nature. And while Christians may bemoan this hijacking of their special day, they of all people should appreciate how little novelty there is in the evolution of religious festivals.
Just as Christianity begged the ‘healing powers’ of mistletoe from Scandinavian love goddess Frigga, borrowed the concept of a Christmas tree from the Teuton celestial sun tree and stole the 25th December birthday from the Roman sun-worshipping prophet Mithras, so popular culture has in turn ransacked Christmas values for the contemporary winter solstice. Indeed, if you’ll indulge me my history lesson, the date of Christmas was deliberately chosen in the fourth century by St Chrysotom, Bishop of Constantinople, to coincide with pagan festivals in order that, “while the heathen are busy with their profane ceremonies, the Christians might perform their sacred rites undisturbed.” If the problem is that the modern-day commercial pagans are seizing their day back, then the solution is surely for Christians to distance themselves from the status quo.
Instead, whenever secular motions are mooted to confer upon the winter festivities the (admittedly eerily corporate sounding) term “Winterval”, the borrowed transatlantic “holidays” or any other non-religious moniker, the Church is second in the queue behind the Daily Mail to insist we all are indeed most certainly celebrating Christmas, thank you very much you damn politically correct multiculturalists. Then, as soon as the secularists back down, Christians decry Christmas as a commercial bastardisation of what their belief system stands for. The Church is the bratty nephew on Boxing Day who doesn’t want what he’s given but doesn’t want anyone else to have it either. It needs its father to get plastered on a fine malt blend and beat it across the back of its legs until it stops its paddy.
The problem, dear readers, is not the commercialisation of Christmas. The problem is the Christianisation of the commercial, the continual efforts to drape religious adornments over what is now a plainly secular holiday. It is clear to all but the bishops that what we celebrate in this country is no longer a religious festival – it is a cultural one propelled through the twentieth century by commercial forces. More children queue to sit on the sweaty knee of a middle-aged CRB-checked man posing as the advertising gimmick created by Coca Cola in 1931 to shift lorry-loads of carbonated sugar than assemble outside Asda to warble “O Little Town of Bethlehem.” Whilst this may not be easy to accept, this is reality. Culture is evolutionary. Get used to it.
The simple answer is for disillusioned traditionalist types to form their own Festivus, an orthodox commemoration of the birth of their Lord. They may regrettably have to share the Christmas label with the commercial deviation, but they will be free to pick ‘n’ mix whichever rituals and customs best suit their beliefs. They can send Santa back to the Coca Cola factory, and retain their hymns, trees and greetings cards, even if it is something of an incongruity that on the birthday of the man who saved the world we attempt to chop down half of it in order that our living rooms can be filled with branches and people we don’t care enough about to telephone can receive a square of cardboard with our signatures on.
Essentially, there’s room for us all. We can all share the winter solstice and celebrate our respective Festivi in harmony, and if this means eroding the ‘spirit’ of Christmas and vexing John Betjeman, then so be it. I personally adore the current amalgam of paganism, Balkan folklore and commercial exploitation that constitutes our December celebrations. A festival which requires the consumption of chocolate every day for a month, encourages explicit lying to impressionable children and inspires rational men to deforest local beauty spots and drag the fruit of their labours into their homes in order that they may sit around it in garish knitwear has all the hallmarks of a classic cult.
Anyway, when you consider that the founding Christmas day was marked by the slaughter of three dozen toddlers, the twenty first century adaptation, be it pinning the head of the Costanza household to the ground or an extended fortnight of giving presents and feasting on nut roasts, strikes me as something resembling progress.
Disagree with Dan? Email your thoughts to letters@student-direct.co.uk
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