I had just gotten my hair cut and paid the man a few days ago when my barber looks at me and says, “Happy Holy Day.” in a very thick Vietnamese accent, which is odd because he is Cuban (kidding).
Upon hearing his words I was struck by their nature. The simplicity of the situation was plain. This man was merely repeating what has now become the safest, blandest and most non-offensive of winter/end-of-year greetings. And yet it spoke to me by nature of his unique and quite accidental inflection. And that is how live happens I think, the harmless and hapless expressions become the most fertile fields for thought.
Meanwhile, back at the attitude farm, a co-worker was ranting about how the company Christmas Party has been renamed the “End of Year Celebration”. “They’ve taken everything else away from us and now they’ve even taken away our Christmas.”, he protested.
I confronted the sour puss by asking him what Christmas meant to him. As it turns out he doesn’t do anything religious on Christmas, he doesn’t reflect on the meaning of deep ancient mysteries and his understanding of Christmas as a holiday is based on very recent occurrences in history. Somehow he has staked out a battle ground (with the help of Fox News no doubt) upon which if you don’t acknowledge Christmas and affirm his family tradition then you have made yourself his opponent. How thin, cheap and temporal is your “Holy Day” if it falls apart when it isn’t affirmed by your Wal-Mart clerk upon check-out?
I told him that he needed to watch “The Grinch” again. If the Grinch couldn’t steal Christmas by stealing everything else then Christmas can’t be taken away.
Remember, it came anyway:
And the Grinch, with his grinch-feet ice-cold in the snow,
Stood puzzling and puzzling: "How could it be so?
It came without ribbons!
It came without tags!
"It came without packages, boxes or bags!"
And he puzzled three hours, `till his puzzler was sore.
Then the Grinch thought of something he hadn't before!
"Maybe Christmas," he thought, "doesn't come from a store.
"Maybe Christmas...perhaps...means a little bit more!"
Sometimes I wonder if Christmas wouldn’t mean a whole lot more if we concentrated on it just a little less.
