Be a Grinch this Holiday Season

Kelly Lynch  //  December 21, 2011

Every year around this time, I always turn on one of my favourite Christmas albums, Snowed In, by Hanson. Judge me if you will, but I stand by my fierce and irrational love of bad pop tunes, and especially Hanson, mostly for nostalgic reasons (when I was 14, Zac Hanson: total dreamboat). One of the (arguably) best tunes on this album is “What Christmas Means to Me”, not just because it’s a horrific cover of a Stevie Wonder original, but the lyrics really do say something about western world Christmas values. Every Christmas cliché imaginable is used in this song, but that’s what Christmas is! One big, beautiful cliché.

Let’s deck the halls with holly, singing Silent Night, fill the tree with angel’s hair, and pretty, pretty lights.

If you haven’t done at least one of these things, you need to get in the spirit, my friend. At least, it won’t hurt you to get a bit more holiday cheerful. Why, you ask? Because Christmas, despite its galumphing cliché tendencies, is an important part of western culture. Yes, it makes people insane, we spend too much money, we eat far too much–we indulge. We’re not supposed to be indulgent, it turns us into bad people with larger waistlines (gasp!)

The thing is, at Christmas, it becomes okay to indulge a little. We eat delicious food we generally attempt to avoid throughout the year, and we sincerely enjoy it (mostly because, hey, everyone else is doing it), we give gifts to people in our lives that have done lovely things for us, or have been good to us throughout the year. Or to those that need it. We let go of some of the usual binds everyday life has on us and we just love stuff. And we love people. The tradition of Christmas has entrenched in it a sentimentality that no other holiday has. Whether you’re celebrating the birth of Christ or not, it doesn’t matter. The holiday season is about letting go a little bit, and embracing the good things, and the good people around you.

Heck, I’ll just say it: Christmas is about love.

We always use the Grinch analogy, or the Scrooge analogy, when we talk about those that dislike the season, but we always forget the morals of those stories. The Grinch’s heart grew ten times its normal size. He starts being nice to Whoville! He’s nice to Max the dog! (Max always knew the Grinch was misunderstood). Scrooge turns into a nice guy (after being haunted by his own death and misdeeds, but whatever!)

So, take a lesson from Scrooge and the Grinch. Spread some love this holiday season. Get Grinchy. Give a little. Get a little. Figure out what Christmas means to you, and remember that love plays an important role.

Happy Holidays, everyone, and thank-you for reading and contributing to Symmetry. Go love somebody this Christmas–and love yourself. You’re awesome.

Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’m going to go find some more halls to deck.