#it's not usually this cold in mid January- at the same time it definitely isn't that warm either

[feralnumberfive]

Friday it was 53°F and now it's -25°F. This shit is bananas

[leam1983]

The Only War we Shouldn't Care About

You know what time it is. December's a few short weeks away, most stores are starting to freak about Christmas, I've already covered my shopping for Walt and Sarah - all that's left is for the seasonal classics to settle in. There's just one classic I don't want to deal with.

Up here in Montreal, the War on Christmas is this absurd Conservative bugaboo we look at derisively, as we tend to wish one another Happy Holidays. Legally, whether you celebrate or not, no matter if you're Jewish, Muslim, Sikh or Buddhist, you'll get a certain amount of time off from your employer, between mid-December and early January. That's all it is to us - time off. If you don't celebrate, your only recourse is to not decorate and, well, maybe show an ounce of patience for TV networks who won't have gotten the message. They obviously won't have; the Western-dominant culture practically demands its yearly re-appropriation of Pagan elements like the effective transformation of a tree into what's effectively a votive symbol, even if you do it from an Atheist perspective. We ask of the right to cling to memories of the last Season of Plenty, as that's what our ornaments are - the brief presentation of an evergreen tree into the affected appearance of a fruit-bearing tree - and I can definitely see how that can be overbearing.

Add to that the more overtly religious aspects - what actually gets the Kirk Camerons of this world crowing about persecution in the most laughable way imaginable; and it's easy to get the sense that for several people, Christmas Season can be, well, too much.

It explains the seasonal blues, the way some workplaces cut the Gordian knot and simply ban seasonal decorations altogether or the way others default to a neutral "Happy Holidays", up here. It's fair of some people to expect the legally-provided time off with no further requirements.

The thing is, some of my remote colleagues are very Christian. Not in the sense you might be familiar with if you're American; they're still a lot more into tolerance and general goodwill than what you might consider the norm for these types - and for them, Christmas isn't quite religious enough, as strange as it might seem. They're not pushing it into Cromwellian excess, but they do get the sense that this is a holiday meant to celebrate renewed hope, spiritually speaking - and I've seen Nicole's WFH office setup start to feature both a Santa Claus figure and a small Nativity diorama. Nicole is the sweetest Compliance Officer you'll ever meet, she's technically retired from the industry but joined us to round out her pension - and she's a hardcore believer, coming from first-generation Sicilian immigrants to Canada.

On the one hand, she's a "good" Theist, in that she isn't overbearing in her spirituality, the same way we avoid discussion topics like war and politics in our workplace-focused Slack channels. On the other, when she says "God bless you", she means it. It's always a bit of a shock, when you're used to everyone and their mother tossing that offhandedly. It makes the less tolerant Theists - usually Evangelicals - that we'll run into while shopping around town, sort of stand out like a sore thumb.

I try and conflate Christmas Season, considering all this, into a time where all of us are allowed to be openly spiritual in the broadest sense possible. If you don't practice anything and are a hardlining Atheist, you could say it's a great time for self-reflection and for preparation. It's a great time to focus on the more holistic aspects of existence, as even Skeptics like me could agree that meeting people can be good for the soul. Putting more time down at the soup kitchen isn't a question of racking up more Redemption Points or whatever, it's about meeting people at a time where my potential assistance will be most useful. Nights are getting cold, warm meals are starting to require some investment of time and resources, and if you have no warm place and no kitchen to work in, you're not going to get that. That's pretty much the extent of my spirituality. Unsurprisingly, it's gotten surprised looks out of some colleagues during our Zoom meetings.

"You're not worried? I mean, you lost people, haven't you? Don't you think you have a soul?"

The fact is I just don't know. Considering, why bother imposing my beliefs on anyone else? Why bother trying to pay lip service to anyone else's belief or lack thereof? We'll decorate the condo because Walt and Sarah love that stuff, but I've been the exact time to forget to pull out the boxes of decorations until December 20th. It'll look pretty for a week or two, then we'll pack it all back in - same as Halloween.

Maybe there is an afterlife, but it's not worth any respect if my accession to it depends on my putting the right little Caucasian Porcelain Baby in my Nativity scene made up of equally whitewashed characters in someone else's distorted story of Middle-Eastern displacement.

So, maybe consider putting your chips down on all the other seasonal symbols, instead: the clean smell of the first few snowfalls, the way cold air always feels cleaner than anything hanging in summertime urban haze, the taste of a good cup of hot cocoa after some exposure to the elements, the return of Sweater Weather, the way the season's blithe consumerism always intersects with your younger relatives getting "the best Christmas ever" every single year as their eyes light up at the sight of the One Thing They Wanted - or the way it all translates to base thoughtfulness between adults.

Kindness. Brotherly love. Friendship. The giving of oneself, really. Things anyone of any culture or religious background could agree on.

That, to me, seems essential. Far, far more than anything related to Christianity.