I’m culturally Christian, which means I decorate my house for Christmas and bake cookies and wrap presents and listen to Christmas music on the car radio; I don’t go to church or set up a manger scene in my front yard. I do love the Christmas season, the lights, the colors, the music.
I wasn’t offended in recent years to see the Christmas season turn into the Winter Holidays. After all, I liked Hanukkah celebrations as well, and always angle for invites to Menorah lighting and potato pancakes. Heck, holidays are good things, the more the better. Diwali, Kwanzaa, bring them on. I’m not sure when I started picking out Happy Holidays cards instead of Christmas cards; when I just had one child the photo cards we sent featured wreaths and reindeer, these days they’re more about snowflakes (admittedly a little strange coming from California).
Sometimes, though, when you blend a lot of disparate things together, something gets lost. The colors get washed out, or turn dull. And, though my favorite song in the school Winter Concert is about next door neighbors, one family celebrating Christmas, one Hanukkah, I’ve been missing the full on, undiluted, red and green, Jingle Bells, Deck the Halls, Merry Merry Christmas I had as a kid.
I discovered this on a trip to Disneyland last weekend
. Turns out Mickey and his friends do not celebrate the Winter Holidays. They celebrate Christmas, in all its secular, gaudy, glory. Understated white trees with monochrome ornaments are not for them, bring on the red and green and gold. This is the kind of Christmas I learned to love as a child. The only time my house had tasteful white lights instead of
brightly colored ones was when we didn’t take them down all year and
they faded. If there are ornaments left in the box, I can find room for
them on the tree. (My husband often suggests stopping,but I think that
the tree can never be too crowded). Now I have an answer; Mickey’s tree
is crowded, too (see opening photo) and st
ill
looks great. In Disneyland’s lanes, snow was glistening (OK, it’s
southern California, the snow was actually soap bubbles, but it looked
very authentic), and sleigh bells were ringing. Christmas wreaths were
everywhere.
The air at Disneyland was filled with Christmas music, traditional
Christmas music, that is, mommy was not kissing Santa Claus and kids
were not making dreidls out of clay. Instead, chestnuts were roasting
by the open fire (perhaps one too many times for my teenager) and the
weather outside was frightful.
My
family went to Disneyland as guests of the resort, as part of their
family media weekend. We had tea (well, I had coffee, the kids had hot
chocolate) with Mary Poppins, Bert, Alice, Goofy, and the Mad Hatter.
And then we roamed. My kids scurried from ride to ride, trying to get
in everything on their respective lists. And I soaked up Christmas,
every bit of it. While they were schussing down the Matterhorn, I
wandered off to visit the live reindeer hanging out with Santa in
Frontierland. I admired all the Christmas decorations. OK, some of the
wreaths had mouse ears, but they still looked great, like the wreaths
that used to hang over main street in NJ where I grew up (before they
were replaced by Happy Holiday flags on poles).
I
wondered if the Christmas decorations would be odd inside my favorite
attractions. And yeah, at first it was strange to hear the small world
dolls sing Jingle Bells, but by the time I got to the end of the ride,
and the Peace on Earth message that’s always part of it, it all seemed
to make sense. The Haunted Mansion, decorated to tell the story of the
Nightmare Before Christmas, did seem a little less scary than the
original ride, but since I went through it with preteen kids, that was
probably a good thing.
Disney’s Christmas got a little more adult Saturday evening; one
weekend a year, for decades, the park has put on a candlelight
ceremony, involving a thousand carolers and a Hollywood star reading
the Christmas Story (this time it was Jane Seymour). It worked for me,
I got totally choked up when the audience joined in on Silent Night.
(My youngest took that hour as a napping opportunity so he could stay
up for fireworks. A good choice, since he loved the Christmas fireworks
show, particularly the Russian Dance from the Nutcracker and the
skyrockets that looked like they were kicking in time to it.)
Lots of park goers clearly had experienced a Disney Christmas
before, and dressed for the occasion. We saw many families in matching
Christmas sweaters; somehow I doubt they wear those to the shopping
mall, but in this world of unabashed Christmas they looked adorable, as
did all the little girls in velvet Christmas dresses.
While basking in the glow of all the Christmas lights and swaying to
the Christmas music, I did wonder how it all felt to people not
culturally Christian. Did they feel left out, or was it like visiting a
foreign country, when you know these customs are not yours, but can
admire them anyway. If Christmas isn’t in your blood, can you accept
that it is the only winter holiday in this contained little world of
Disney, in the same way you accept giant mice and dogs and bears
strolling around?
Back in San Jose Sunday night, we took the shuttle bus to our car in
long-term parking. The lampposts in the parking lot sported blue and
white banners wishing us Seasons Greetings or Happy Holidays or some
generic expression. I couldn’t help thinking at least a few ought to
say Merry Christmas.