I’m Dreaming of a Christmas Without A Pile Of Crap

I will never forget going to the Estonian church on Mount Pleasant in Toronto.

What a beautiful place.

My grandparents would take us there for their annual Christmas service.

The brilliant stained glass and the ancient organ seemed to take up an entire wall. I loved the smell of the pews and the clothes of the immaculately dressed pastor.

But that's where the thrills stopped.

You see, the service was in Estonian and I don't speak Estonian. Yet my siblings and I would stand there, albeit a bit confused, pretending to mouth the words to the hymns as my grandmother pointed to the correct place in the prayer guide.

Although the idea of a Christian god never actually took root in my young brain, I came to respect the need for these types of experiences.

It's not just adults who are at odds with commercialism and consumption. Janice Quirt's 15-year-old son wants nothing for Christmas.

Ritual, Not Just An App For Food

My appreciation for ritual is largely based on the work of Joseph Campbell and the Power of Myth series. He believed very strongly in the power of ritual and how essential it is to society. I see that, too. 

Getting wrapped up in a community ritual, where there is song and friendship — there's a lot to enjoy within those constructs outside of worship.

So despite my atheism and my anti-capitalist fervour, I partake in Christmas.

But my wife would hardly say I do so willingly.

No Gifts For You!

She makes sure to remind me every year that she “can't believe [she] married the biggest Scrooge on the planet.”

And she's not wrong —  it is weird that she puts up with me as well as she does.

But it's not all bah humbug. While I have my reservations about this holiday, our daughter is very much on board. Which is unsurprising, because she's a child who is excited by the surprise of gifts.

My major complaints are not so much about the rituals that connect family and friends. It's the commercialism, waste and endless piles of plastic trash.

This is why I don't buy my daughter Christmas presents.

Because, how could I?

She gets so much from everyone else it seems pointless, even detrimental.

I'd rather take the opportunity to remind her how lucky she is to live in a land of plenty and help her manage the money she gets, suggesting alternatives to exclusively using it to purchase Roblox skins. It's the same for her birthday.

I say, “Baby, look at all this stuff, you should be giving me something on your birthday.”

Horrifically selfish I know, but rest assured I would never make good on the suggestion. It's just a running joke and a reminder to all of us to be thankful for what we have.

The rest is great fun to me.

Our Cross-Ontario Tour

Over the holidays, my family takes a cross-Ontario tour.

First we head to Paris to see Grandma and Grandpa Rick, then to Barrie for Nanna, Uncle Jeff and Aunt Jen.

From Barrie it's straight up the frozen shield to Haliburton, where a sanctuary of winter beauty awaits us.

A beautiful Christmas tree and a perfect winter setting, logs on the fire, a turkey dinner. It's the exact scene I have played out with my father since my earliest memories.

It is a wonderful time and Haliburton is a spectacular winter destination. I still don't get what the tree decorating is all about but it works. 

Grandparents and Christmas and trees and giant roasted birds works for my culture, despite my holiday concerns. All I know is how we celebrate as a family works for us. Because it's so much more about the journey, not the gifts and expectation. 

When we are together, the words of the ritual are meaningless. The flashy trees and the delicate bows are meaningless. Whether we give the day to Jesus or Santa, the true people we pay homage to are each other.

We could gather around fireworks or incense, prayer beads or a menorah, it makes no difference to me.

Our ritual reminds us what Joseph Campbell was so insistent upon: we need each other.

As I see it, as human beings our greatest survival strength has been our empathy and our compassion. I feel that ceremonies that celebrate and strengthen these bonds are beautiful and important things.

After three long drives, stuffed with turkey and blinded by flashing tree lights, we make our next leg of the journey: straight from Haliburton to Ottawa in prime freezing-rain season. The difficulties we have faced on this stretch are simply too many to mention. But it is a labour of love.

Inevitably we will be asked: “How was the drive?”

And with some certainty, I'll reply: “Pass the weed gummies.”

But when we are in Ottawa, it feels like home. My wife and I met at university there, and my daughter can see her cousins, who are like siblings to her.

For Sabrina Boileau, the last two years have been quite challenging. And Christmas, while usually a refuge, has been anything but. But she is changing that this year. 

The Last Leg Hits Different

Like me, my brother is also atheist with agnostic leanings.

He's vegetarian. 

So this leg is a little different from the previous stops. There is no turkey, nor trees. And we stay until they throw us out, or school starts — whichever comes first. 

With this change of pace comes our own, more atheistic, non-secular rituals. Rituals that add to the spirit of the holidays for us. 

We have a New Year's Day gift hunt to replace Christmas, like an Easter egg hunt meets Christmas. The kids love it. 

After, we order Japanese food and my brother even wrote "The Atheist Prayer" which he recites for us all. 

These are our rituals, which while different from everything else we'll experience over a holiday season, are no less important to the main tenant of my holiday philosophy: being together is important, everything else is meaningless. 

These two weeks are always exhausting, but worth it. On the drive home, I always reflect on how not everyone is as lucky as we are. And who knows, perhaps with COVID-19, things will be different and less spirited as previous years.

But I can say this with certainty: I'll never be on board with the excess of the season. I will never be happy about a new pile of crap.

While I might not assign meaning to every secular or non-secular event, I am happy to stand quietly among the people I love, taking in their joy and being satisfied that I get to be among the people I care about the most in this world.